A Mother's Journey
by DrYuriMom
Summary: Throughout time, mothers have watched their children go off to fight with both pride and fear in their hearts. Would the mothers of magical girls be any different if they knew?
1. Puella Magi Chronicles: Mother's Journey

**The Puella Magi Chronicles  
****Volume**: (unnumbered, uncategorized, private-paper)  
Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka

Personal Forward

A Mother's Journey

It has been nearly 150 years since my beautiful and brave twin daughters descended into madness after exhausting their magic against the Walpurgisnacht that threatened this very City of Chicago on the evening of October 8th, 1871, having already laid waste the countryside of Wisconsin and Michigan. Despite the terrible fire which my fellow humans blamed on a hapless cow, the amalgam witch was defeated…at the price of my heart.

At least that's my original recollection of it, having been there. Ask any Incubator now and they'd tell you it was a peculiar accumulation of powerful wraiths fed by an unusual concentration of miasma…human despair from a city that was stressed during the aftermath of the American Civil War and from having grown more than 10-fold in 30 years. I'm not interested in arguing with the alien rats since I can remember their version too, and like the rest of Puella Magi history it's their version that is documented now in my Chronicles. I'm sure my girls, if they could be asked, would ironically agree with the Incubators over their own mother.

Madoka works in mysterious ways.

On that devastating autumn morning, I swore I'd never get involved again. Forced to helplessly follow my noble girls as they reached and exceeded the limits of their endurance and sanity, living their last moments of despair alongside them until their blackened soul gems shattered, a part of me, the best part, died with them. I would continue my Chronicles, a duty which Audrey's wish will never let me shirk and Moira's wish guarantees I'll complete, but I wouldn't become invested. I would simply journal the experiences of the magical girls dispassionately, ensuring none of these gloriously remarkable and terribly tragic young women are ever forgotten.

My choice was reinforced every time one or more of these girls fought Gemina Venefica, the Twin Witch, the terrible and profane remains of my blessed children. Over and over again thanks to their free-ranging familiars, I had to live through the Puella Magi as they destroyed, or more often were consumed by (Audrey was always a calculating little bitch, even when herself), the fruit of my own womb…or at least the rotten remains of that fruit. It wasn't hard to entomb my heart, to just document the generally brief lives lived by each girl who made a contract with the weasels and leave my feelings locked away.

Then the world changed…literally in fact. A dying little girl in an industrial city in Japan made the most seminal wish in 150,000 years, since a starving little girl much like her had wished simply for rain, saving the huddled remnants of the entire human race, only a few thousand remaining emaciated souls strong, barely enough to fill a large modern high-school, before it was snuffed out by ice age induced drought in eastern Africa. I'll give the Incubators this- we wouldn't be here if not for them and that one remarkable…and like all her kind…tragic child.

But I digress. One dying little girl, like some kind of John the Baptist, anointed the dawn of a new age. I still don't know if I will ever be able to bring myself to document the 782 iterations I lived with her as she tried to save her best friend. I know for a fact I will never be able to do justice to Sagitta Luminis, despite how it is now the reference point for time in my head and for this particular private work. With Her wish, Kaname Madoka freed and embraced the thousand scores of girls who had gone before Her…my beloved daughters included.

Once again, nearly 400 years after Audrey's wish, I lost myself to time and in one instant lived the altered lives of the multitudinous Puella Magi, this time with a much happier ending. I don't know if it was my imagination or not given Her mind was already alien to me even before Her cosmic soul gem burst and She therefore transcended my purview, but I'd like to think She was blessing me too. Unlike my daughters however, who I know now are in a much better place in the arms of Magna Sagittariis, the Great Archer, my ultimate fate will not lie with Madoka. I'm not a Puella Magi, and in any case I'm certainly not worthy.

What I am, however, is a mother. And I cannot reject the anguished cries of a girl I now treasure no less than my own twins. I've been with her through tears and despair as she failed 781 times to save the very reason she continued living. I rode the waves of the universe with her and Madoka during Sagitta Luminis, bore witness through this girl to the most profound event in all of this new creation as Madoka acknowledged just what this girl had been to Her. Like any mother who lives for her children, I have come to live for this girl who lives for Madoka. In this world desperate for a savior I feel certain she has a profound destiny to fulfill before passing from this existence, yet she is weighed to the point of falling by her accumulated burdens. Perhaps it is Madoka who moves me as the only one in this universe who knows of Her as anything but a pleasant dream.

I'd like to think so.

Tomorrow I fly to Japan on sabbatical for what can only be termed as a pilgrimage. I shall put aside my duties for a while, for as long as the echoes of my youngest daughter's insistent wish will allow me, and pursue a personal mission. Because I dare not share my heart on this matter with my alien colleagues, I have left this private history out of the official Chronicles, hence the lack of volume numeration and my use of good old-fashioned human-crafted paper. I choose, however, to document the events of their lives because these three remarkable children, who along with their fallen swashbuckling friend were the mid-wives of our current existence, must have their stories told, even if it's only those parts that happen after the baby is born.

Dr. Fiona Graham, MS (astrophysics), PhD (anthropology, history)  
Chicago, Illinois, USA

* * *

**Latin Lexicon**

**Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka** (CSM) = Madoka's Universe/Cosmos  
**Cosmos Ante Madoka** (CAM) = The pre-Madoka Universe/Cosmos  
**Sagitta Luminis** = Arrow of Light (Madoka's final sacrifice, where She performs Her wish and the nexus between CAM to CSM)  
**Magna Sagittariis** = Great Archer (Kaname Madoka transcendant (CSM))  
**Gemina Venefica** = Twin Witch (remnant of Moira and Audrey Graham (CAM))  
**Puella Magi** = Magician Girl

* * *

*****Real-World Author's Note*****

I tend to bounce around a lot timewise in my stories, so I usually timestamp each chapter and page break, the latter denoted by ***PGBR***. A simple break, denoted by /*/, means no or minimal break in time. All dates in my Puella Magi stories will be referenced upon Sagitta Luminis, which in Latin means 'Arrow of Light'- the day the Homura of 782 previous existances is placed back into the timestream of Madoka's new cosmos. Or alternately, in the 782nd iteration, the day of Madoka's wish and the remaking of the cosmos. The two differ by about a week in the two universes. Yes, it gets very confusing when you're following the story of someone who jumps existences...

A note on my facts. The Great Chicago fire indeed happened overnight Oct 8-9, 1871. That same night, massive fires burned north of that city in Wisconsin and Michigan, possibly caused by cometary fragments of all things. Seems like fertile soil for a Walpurgisnacht. As far as my reference to a little girl 150,000 years ago, there was indeed a "bottleneck" in human genetics around that time where we as a species were down to a few thousand individuals. We don't know for sure the reason why we were almost snuffed out, but current theories are focused on ice-age driven drought. What we do know with certainty is we almost bought it back when we were helpless at the whim of nature. Pretty humbling stuff, and in my mind the ideal time for the Incubators to make their first and greatest mark in human history. Our dear Fiona has a very warm place in her heart for this little girl, as I'm sure does Madoka.

Please review or PM if you would like to see more of this and the next chapter which will be posted at the same time as this one. Be aware the next chapter is VERY different from this one. This is a prologue, world building if you will; the next chapter starts to tell the actual story. Fiona won't play into the actual story for a while.

~Dr. Gwen (a.k.a. Dr Yuri Mom)


	2. A Mother's Love

**A/N:** A word on punctuation convention. Telepathy is a well established skill of magical girls and incubators, and the humans who communicate with them. All thoughts, whether internal or broadcast, are in _italics_. To facilitate differentiation between internal dialog and thoughts meant for broadcast, those thoughts intended for sharing are in _"italicized quotations"_. Note, occasionally there are internal thoughts that are picked up or unintentionally broadcast. These will (hopefully) be identified clearly in the story.

* * *

**Latin Lexicon**

**Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka** (CSM) = Madoka's Universe/Cosmos  
**Cosmos Ante Madoka** (CAM) = The pre-Madoka Universe/Cosmos  
**Sagitta Luminis** = Arrow of Light (Madoka's final sacrifice, where She performs Her wish and the nexus between CAM to CSM)  
**Puella Magi** = Magician Girl

* * *

**A Mother's Love****  
**

_**Throughout time, mothers have watched their children go off to fight with both pride and fear in their hearts. Would the mothers of magical girls be any different if they knew?**_

_Monday, March 14  
(Six weeks before Sagitta Luminis, Cosmos ante Madoka,  
__immediately prior to Akemi Homura entering first recursion)_

"You're so fortunate, honey, to be able to live here and receive the best care in the world. You know what the doctors said about the advanced treatments available at the Mitakihara University School of Medicine."

_I know, Mother. I know. I may even manage to survive until graduation living here, if I'm lucky maybe even without a wheelchair and able to take care of myself without home aides until the end. But what's the point if I'm all alone?_

Akemi Homura didn't know what was more sterile, her mother's words or the hospital room where she had been staying for well over a month already. Although with the treatments she now felt infinitely better than she had even a week ago, she still lay in bed. It was a position she knew well after so much of her life laying in them. It had been years since she had been able to go more than a few hours without laying down, years since her body hadn't been betraying her, eating itself alive with a deranged immune response as if her own body, her own heart, was a disease.

_It's fitting, I suppose, that I should fade out of existence along with my heart. I'm already dead to mother, and I'm almost dead inside. Why does it matter if I have a heart anyway? No one cares about it, not even the woman in whom it formed in the first place. _

_I don't belong here anymore. I never did._

"I know, Mother," Homura agreed with a smile pasted on her face despite the hurt she was feeling deep inside. "I'm so grateful for all you've done and so sorry for all the inconvenience I've been."

Akemi Noriko smiled seemingly warmly at this, completely missing…or perhaps choosing to miss…the pain behind her daughter's eyes.

"Oh, you've been no inconvenience, sweetheart," her mother assured her like reading from a script. "And the doctors say your response to the therapy had been phenomenal, so much so that it's perfectly fine for you to be living on your own so you can stay here and keep getting treatments. You have the keys to the apartment, right? And the credit cards? You should have everything you need to get whatever you want. You can get me by cell phone whenever you need me and you just have to press the button on your necklace transmitter and the home aide will come right away. I'll visit from Tokyo when I can.

_Which would be never. I'm being left here to die. I can have anything I want…except my mother who just can't handle facing me every day and what I represent. The withering remnant of her family now that Father is gone, slowly fading before her eyes. Even worse, the victim of her own toxic genes._

_A child who is nothing but a burden, without worth. A child with no friends, no family. A child left to face fate alone._

_My fate._

*****PGBR*****

_Thursday, May 12  
(Two weeks after Sagitta Luminis)  
(Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)_

"Wake up, rookie."

Akemi Homura was shaken from her reverie by a rough hand on her shoulder resulting in unfamiliar pain.

"Stop it Kyouko-senpai, you're hurting me," the violet eyed girl said as she shied nervously away from her incredibly strong, and unhobbled, friend.

The thick-maned redhead had the grace to look guilty. "Um, sorry."

Homura sighed. She realized full-well why Kyouko had been trying to get her attention. A nurse had called her name while she was gathering wool in the past…or more correctly _A_ past. Memories that were hers and yet not hers. It had been two weeks since the weight of this alternate her had dropped on her mind and heart like a wave crashing upon someone swimming in the ocean, threatening her very sense of self. She was still trying to gather her muddled wits and come up for air. Only time would tell if she would get to the surface in time, or whether she'd become this anguished girl whose intense and mostly tormented memories now haunted her.

She rose like she would normally, her new normal- not with her organic body once again stricken by illness, something probably non-lethal with the help of modern medicine unlike in the memories that had just now taken her, but still extremely limiting before she had become a magical girl and gained the ability to compensate with magic…magic she'd withdrawn today in order to keep up the charade. Once again her muscles and mind didn't quite coordinate right and failed her at inopportune moments…like now. She stumbled forward and Kyouko had to grab her before she fell.

"Um, sorry," Homura threw back the words with a wry grin at her friend as she steadied herself against the redhead and righted her glasses before knocking back the long twin braids she had spent the previous night recreating. "I forgot I need to take it easy."

_"This is pathetic_," Kyouko thought in irritation at Homura using telepathy with her fellow magical girl. "_And embarrassing…for me. I ain't a nurse, ya know"._

_"Actually, you are_, Homura smugly reasoned back as she savored the interaction with her mentor, using it to firmly ground herself again in the here and now. "_Or did you forget you vamped Mom into paying you to be my home health aide?"_

Her friend scowled just as Homura's mom came to join them again after having settled details at the front desk. The ever-munching girl lifted the remains of the bag of M&M's she had been snacking on to her lips and tilted her head back so the rest of the candies slid into her mouth, crumpling up and stuffing the empty wrapper in her pocket when she was done.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Akemi Noriko said with clear apparent for her daughter, who still clung to her redheaded friend's arm for balance support.

"I'm fine, Mom. I just was a little dizzy. Kyouko-senpai's picking me up off the ground all the time."

Homura smiled as Kyouko struggled to keep from busting a gut…and splattering the remaining M&M's still in her mouth…given the truth of the statement, and the unlikelihood of the older woman ever guessing the rather violent details of the circumstances. Homura urged her both annoyed and amused friend forward to follow after her mom and make their way to join the nurse who would lead them into the infusion center.

_My mother couldn't be any more different between my other self and I,_ the newest magical girl in Mitakihara City mused to herself, forgetting for a moment that the link between herself and Kyouko would be heightened by physical contact.

_"First off, cut with the 'other self' crap. Second, just so ya know, I didn't vamp her into anything_," Kyouko defended into Homura's mind. "_I just wanted to make sure she liked me and'd believe me so things'd go easier for us. It was all her idea to hire me to do what you told her I was doin' anyway- takin' care of you as senpai to kohai. If it ain't more work for me, I won't turn down free money."_

_"She feels guilty for not being here with me,"_ Homura explained more to herself than the redhead whose arm she still held for balance. "_The treatments I'm supposed to need are experimental and only available here. Her career requires her to be in Tokyo. With Daddy gone, she was so torn as to what to do. I volunteered to live here on my own so she could keep doing what she loves. She's always worrying about leaving me alone, and the idea that I've connected with a ronin friend who lives with me and helps out has gone a long way to assuaging her guilt. And speaking of ronin, if you didn't vamp her then how in heck did you get her to believe you're 18 years old and re-taking college entrance exams?"_

_"You're the one who said I'd already left high school. She made the rest of it up on her own, and I just didn't argue," _the redheaded veteran responded.

_"You still don't look a day over fifteen_, Homura remarked dryly.

_"One thing I've learned livin' on my own the past few years is that people believe what they wanna believe, magic or no. If it wasn't for that, we'd have a bitch of a time keeping all this magical girl and wraith stuff secret, especially given the mess wraiths and our fighting 'em can make and all the missin' people."_

The conversation was cut off as they arrived at her assigned room. Homura's mom took her daughter's arm from Kyouko and walked with her to the reclining, high-back procedure chair to help her get situated as the nurse brought in a tray covered with the supplies necessary to start an IV line and infuse her treatment. Feeling extraneous at the moment, Kyouko found a much simpler chair in a corner near the door and decided to try and be inobtrusive.

_"As annoying n' obnoxious as she is fawning over you like she does, you're really lucky to have a mom like that," _the girl in the corner commented once she'd gotten comfortable._ "My mom's dead, and Mami's died back in the car accident that would have killed her if not for Kyubey."_

_"Oh, I know_," Homura agreed as she sat back and waited for the IV line to be placed. Her mom was sitting beside her, holding her hand reassuringly. "_I also know because the mom my other self had was…let's just say a lot more flawed_."

Kyouko nodded, but her face contained a scowl Homura could see from across the room. "_It always comes back to that story a' yours, don't it? Ever since we lost Sayaka you've been going on about it. I thought I've been torn up over losing that idiot newbie but you've completely cracked. You do realize I knew you before that moment you said everythin' changed. I watched your soul gem get born with my own eyes and your wish had nothin' to do with time travel or some Madoka chick. Nothin's changed at least while I've been a magical girl. Wraiths are wraiths and they're still a pain in the ass to fight."_

Any response Homura might have had was interrupted by the nurse holding up the readied butterfly needle to insert the IV line. Homura had never liked needles at all, in any timeline as far as she could tell from the jumble her other memories represented for her. Despite all she had been through even just in her own reality, she wasn't thrilled about experiencing it again. _No one says I can't cheat_, she thought as she closed her eyes and briefly raised her pain threshold for the insertion.

"You okay?" the nurse asked as Homura turned to see the site get taped down and she dropped back to human normal senses. Only then could she feel the cold saline coursing through her arm.

Homura opened her eyes and smiled to the caregiver. "Didn't hurt a bit. Thank you."

The nurse smiled back casually as she inspected the infusion set from end to end and called it good. She then picked up a labeled bag of fluid from the tray she was working from and went to piggyback it in. When the line was running, the nurse continued speaking, this time to educate her patient. "Be sure to stay in bed, even if you just need to go to the bathroom, until we tell you that you can get up. You know the drill. This stuff will make you loopy, probably even sleepy, for several hours, even after its done going in. We'll take drug levels a few times during and afterwards since it's experimental and the drug company will need the data for approval. It'll mean a few more pokes. Sorry about that."

"It's no problem," Homura assured the woman. She smiled again at both the nurse and her mom. "It's worth it given how I can now go to school without being absent all the time. Thank you both again for allowing me to make a difference for other people as well as myself." She felt warm both from her mom's handholding and the effects of the drug.

_"I feel guilty about what I'm probably doing to the study data by continuing with it,"_ Homura thought uncomfortably to Kyouko.

Kyouko's response was uncharacteristically gentle. "_From what you told me 'bout the condition, if you have some kinda miracle recovery, it'll bring lotsa questions. They'd wanna examine you more, not less. In the end, you'd probably have to fake your death anyway in order to keep fightin'. You've been pretty clear you're not ready to give up your life yet."_

_"I'm not_," Homura admitted_. "As you said, I have an amazing mom and I'm not ready to break her heart yet."_

_"You will eventually," _Kyouko had to point out, slipping into mentor mode._ "You'll either buy it real quick like Sayaka and most of the other girls I've seen, or people'll eventually notice you don't look your age. Remember rookie, we don't age. If this team thing Mami is so passionate about works out the way she says and we manage to really last a while, you two'll eventually haveta stop clinging to your old lives."_

_"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," _Homura reaffirmed_. "I don't plan on dying, so I've got a few years. You yourself keep saying I'm the most powerful girl, in terms of potential, you've ever seen. I'm just getting more so as I sort out and learn from my other experiences. Even you've had to admit how much I've changed in combat the past week."_

Kyouko shrugged. "_Well, that flyin' trick you just suddenly developed has been real handy already, and you're gettin' better in the air every day with practice. The explosions you came up with to go with being airborne was a nice touch, although as our only close range fighter right now I'm still not sure I like the idea much. It feels like you're as likely to off me as the wraiths."_

_"Just wait until you see some of the other ideas I used while protecting Madoka," _Homura mused as she felt herself increasingly floating with the drug_. "Although I never could beat Walpurgisnacht without her, despite how many times I tried, I came up with a lot of tricks which I think may help now. As tough as wraiths can be when in groups, they don't compare to an amalgam witch. That last time I set off an entire oil refinery with millions of gallons of refined petrol and she just sloughed it off. I may as well have been fighting with a fly swatter and pop-gun."_

Kyouko refrained from responding immediately to that as she watched Akemi Noriko rise and give her daughter a kiss on the forehead. She smiled as the spoke. "It looks like you're in good hands right now, honey, and if the past is any guide you'll fall asleep really soon. Do you mind if I go get a little work done during the infusion? There's a coffee shop with wifi in the lobby and I need to do some things from my laptop. Anyway, from the looks you and Sakura-san keep sharing from across the room, I almost feel like I'm interrupting something." She then winked at her daughter to ensure her good humor was understood.

"Mom!" Homura responded with blushing embarrassment at her mother's words despite the well intentioned teasing. She then smiled and shook her head slowly to avoid dizziness. "Do what you need to, Mom. I'm not going anywhere. And although I can assure you Kyouko and I are just really good friends, I do enjoy her company. We'll be good girls while you're gone."

"See that you are. I'll be back in half an hour or so," Akemi Noriko assured, then turned to Kyouko. "Thanks again for taking my daughter under your wing, Sakura-san. I really appreciate it." The two shared a smile. "When I get back, I'll watch Homura for a bit while you go have a break. You can raid the coffee shop on my credit card, deal?"

Kyouko nodded, smiling more widely at the idea of free food. Noriko held out her hand as she passed Kyouko, the two squeezing hands for a moment, before the older woman was gone.

_"I'll say it again, you're lucky to have a mom like that," _Kyouko thought 'aloud' as she pondered the hand that had recently gripped Noriko's. "_If I'd known you had someone like her in your life, I'd never have let you make a wish."_

_"I don't think there's anything you could have done about it," _Homura responded, shaking her head slowly again to emphasize her words. "_I made my wish when my mother wasn't nearly as concerned about my welfare, and you weren't around that time anyway. It was a very different world, in so many ways."_

_"Both you and the nurse said the drug will make ya silly, so I won't whack ya for your crazy talk. Just remember what Mami said about the risk of losin' your own identity with the other one, whether it's real or made up. You were talkin' in first person there just like a few minutes ago about this other past. You're worryin' me."_

_"I don't know, Kyouko," _Homura thought back, expressing the uncertainty she still felt about all that was happening to her._ "It all feels so real right now. Maybe it's the drug, but I can see her so clearly right now. You know we have the same skill set. She was an archer too."_

_"Madoka was?"_ Despite her concerns about it, Kyouko has to admit a morbid fascination with the imagery Homura kept dredging up.

Homura nodded sleepily. "_She was so noble when she and Mami rescued me from that first witch. I know it was hero worship, but she never stopped being my hero."_

"You're falling asleep, rookie," Kyouko said aloud. "Go ahead and take a nap. You deserve it." She continued the thought mentally without skipping a beat. "_And you need it. It's not like you ever get much sleep patrollin' all night and goin' to school all day."_

_"I don't need sleep any more than you do, Kyouko. You're being silly."_

_"Maybe, but you're the one lettin' that drug in you to keep your mom and the docs happy. Take advantage of the little vacation. I promise you, when your mom is back in Tokyo, Mami and I will drill you into the ground to make up for lost time."_

Homura groaned aloud, already fading into sleep. "You're cruel."

_"Damn right I am. You're going to be a long-timer even if it kills me."_

Homura shivered even as she faded off. "_Don't say that, Kyouko. You've died before my eyes often enough. I don't want to lose you this time. Not when we've finally…become…friends…"_

That last thought faded off as the girl slipped into full slumber.

**/*/**

_NOOOO!_

Guilt and despair flooded through Kyouko, driven by that one anguished mental cry.

_"Homura!" _Kyouko jumped up from the table where she had been eating a sandwich and drinking from a can of Coke and bolted at full speed for the treatment room. It only occurred to her much later that she'd left the food behind, mostly uneaten. She resisted the urge to transform into her magical girl outfit and its associated defenses, knowing the complications doing so in the crowded clinic might be worse than whatever Homura was facing now.

_"Homura!" _Kyouko called out hearing no response from the girl, just increasing waves of anguish.

_"Kyouko!" _It was Kyubey.

_"What! I'm kinda busy right now!"_

_"Mami's on her way from the school and I'll be there even sooner. Homura's despair should be controlled. It's too much, too fast."_

_"That's a weird way of puttin' it, but I had sorta figured that out. Now shut up 'till you get here and can be useful."_

Kyouko blew past people with inhuman speed and agility, arriving in the treatment room in less than a minute. She found Noriko holding her daughter tightly against herself as Homura cried hysterically, still apparently asleep. Kyouko made her way to the chair where Homura was reclined and took the spot on the other side of the girl.

"I'm sorry, Madoka…" Homura was mumbling almost incoherently, but that part was clearly audible.

Noriko was almost as hysterical as her daughter. "Sakura-san, thank God you're here. She's having some kind of nightmare. I can't seem to calm her and I don't think the drug will let her wake up. The nurse is running to get something to sedate her even more, to completely knock her out."

Kyouko took Homura's hand, the one on which her soul gem ring resided, with her own similarly bejeweled hand. She noted Homura's soul gem as usual didn't appear at all sullied, which seemed incongruent with the powerful despair filling the young girl right now. With their rings touching, Kyouko tried again to get through to her friend and student.

_"Homura! Ya haveta calm down. I'm here and I won't let anything hurt you."_

_"I killed her. With my own hand, I killed her. How could I?" _Homura's mental voice was frantic.

_"It's just a dream, Homura. Try to wake up, or at least listen to me that it's gonna to be okay."_

_"Kyouko? How? Mami killed you. You're all dead and I have to stop Madoka. Kyubey lied to us!"_

_"Homura, I haven't lied to you_." Kyubey flitted across the room and took his perch around Homura's shoulders, invisible to all present who weren't magical girls.

_"Madoka!" _The waves of anguish and despair roiling from Homura increased impossibly at the arrival of the alien.

"Akemi-san," the nurse said as she came up to the bed with a syringe. "I'm sorry about this. Nightmares are a side-effect of the medication, although this has got to be the worst we've seen before. I'm giving her a big dose of a short-acting sedative. She'll be out like a light in a minute. Keep trying to calm her, both of you, so that she doesn't hurt herself or pull out her IV before it kicks in."

"I've never seen her so scared before," Noriko shared through her own barely controlled tears. "Not even when she was a little girl after her father died." The distraught woman held Homura more tightly and started shaking with her own sobs.

The nurse briefly patted Noriko's shoulder and glanced sympathetically to Kyouko before leaving the room.

_"Homura's despair is directly affecting the humans in this place," _Kyubey stated flatly._ "I can stop it if you'll move your hand, Kyouko."_

_"Whatcha gonna do?"_

_"Trust me," _Kyubey assured the redheaded magical girl.

_"Don't trust him! He lied to us!" _Homura's mental voice seemed desperate.

Too much was happening and Kyouko was left uncertain what her next step should be. She reached out to her own mentor, hoping somehow the blonde girl could hear her. "_Mami, what should I do!"_

The calm mental voice of the notoriously serene musketeer entered her mind, likely relayed by Kyubey since she was still travelling. "_I don't like forcing Akemi-san, but I don't see any difference between the medication the nurse is giving her and having Kyubey restrain her. I'm still not sure what's haunting our friend, but I do know with her impressing despair like this on so many people we'll never see the end of the wraiths if she isn't calmed down immediately."_

Kyouko had to agree. She tightened her grip briefly on Homura's hand, trying to lend strength to her fellow magical girl, then moved her hands to the girl's forearm so that Homura's soul gem was exposed. Immediately Kyubey's 'hands' extended to touch the ring which flashed with light as what could only be described as a struggle of wills ensued. It lasted but a moment, and remarkably the alien was rebuffed.

_"She blocked it!"_ Kyouko had never seen the creature surprised before, but despite his lack of emotion it was clear he was completely taken aback by the development. "_She's also using magic to reject the chemical the human injected in her."_

_"What now?"_ Kyouko asked, knowing full well she would not like the answer.

**Have faith in her. She'll be alright**. It wasn't words, per se, but rather a sense of confidence in Homura that filled Kyouko, and she felt moved to take the girl's hand again in her own, bringing their soul gems together once more. She impressed onto Homura the words that came into her mind.

_"Homura, we're with you. Mami and I, your mom, we're all here by your side. You're not alone."_

Homura's distress vanished. In an instant, it was as if it had never been. The previously hysterical girl's face took on a peaceful expression and she visibly descended into a more peaceful sleep. Although she felt no desire to sleep herself, Kyouko too felt a sense of calm overtake her as it somehow flowed from her into Homura. Looking across her friend's now sleeping body, Kyouko could see Noriko relaxing as well, her face shifting inexplicably from sobs to a wan smile.

"I missed you, Madoka…" the girl at the center of it all mumbled before deep sleep fully took her.

**/*/**

"She said something about a grief seed and becoming monsters and breaking things until there was nothing left," Homura's mom explained, shaking her head in confusion. "It made no sense, but you can see how distressed it made her. Do you have any idea what this is about?"

Noriko and Kyouko sat next to each other a short distance away from Homura, watching over the girl as she slept peacefully. Homura's doctor and an administrator had come to check in on them a little while earlier. The doctor assured Noriko that her slumber was a side effect of the drug and clearly the Ativan had done what it was supposed to do, calming the girl. She'd be asleep for a few hours and then wake up none the worse for the wear, probably remembering nothing of it given the treatment drug and the way Ativan worked to cause amnesia. The administrator apologized for the distress and arranged for both women to have fresh latte's brought to them with permission to drink them in the room with Homura. No one seemed to want to risk Homura's distress again after it apparently had effects all over the hospital. The girl's screaming had been audible throughout the infusion center, although the administrator seemed perplexed at why distress seemed to extend far beyond Homura's voice, and then vanished at the moment she had been calmed.

Kyouko took a long sip of her coffee to cover her pause as she decided just what to say. _Mami, any ideas?_ She asked their shared friend who was sitting with a curiously quiet and reserved Kyubey in the lobby area. She had been relaying the conversation to the other two. "_Grief seeds, monsters, breakin' things? She talked to me about killing that Madoka chick she keeps talkin' 'bout. She never talked about any of this until…"_

_"Until we lost Miki-san," _Mami finished softly. "_The two of them were classmates, although they hadn't known each other long. They became magical girls at just about the same time. Akemi-san comes from a gentle background and her wish was based on protection. My best guess is she's having trouble processing her first close loss, especially given it was so soon after the wish. Her wish was powerful, and we know it to be still at work. It's very possible it's tormenting her for her failure to keep her friend safe. Kyubey?"_

Kyubey didn't respond immediately. Kyouko was about to answer Noriko when he finally shared his own perspective. "_Mami's theory makes a great deal of sense and presents the most reasonable working hypothesis. Akemi Homura's potential when she became a magical girl was excessively large, and the energy behind it was unfamiliar to me. Since then, it has increased substantially, something which should be impossible. Despite her illness, her apparent karmic destiny can't even come close to accounting for it. Her wish was extremely broad and should have been only modestly filled. Instead, since the disappearance of Miki Sayaka she seems to be manifesting powers that may allow her to fight the wraiths on a scale I've never seen before, to 'keep everyone safe' in her words after you two and Sayaka rescued her and the others from the wraith-inspired suicide pact and she alone remembered the events. I've never before seen powers evolve like this once wishes have been granted, so her eventual capabilities are undetermined. She's an irregularity and will bear close watching."_

As interesting as it was, none of that helped her answer Homura's mother and Kyouko knew she had to respond to the woman who was looking at her expectantly.

"Homura had a friend in her class who disappeared a few weeks ago. No one knows what happened to her, and the police now fear the worst. Miki Sayaka was probably Homura's closest friend at that school she goes to, well other than a 9th grade girl you'll get to meet tonight. My guess is it's hittin' her harder than she's lettin' on."

Noriko nodded thoughtfully. "That would make sense. I can imagine she'd be in grief over it, probably feeling guilty. Not being there for her…not being close enough for her friend to have felt comfortable sharing her feelings. Dear God, that would be rough. The unknown would seem like a monster. No wonder my baby girl would be taking it so hard. She's always been really sensitive." Noriko nodded more to herself as she spoke. "The name she mumbled wasn't Sayaka, though. Who is Madoka?"

Kyouko shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe it was a nickname."

Noriko took another sip of coffee and she considered the sleeping form of her daughter. "That makes sense," she said and seemed comfortable dropping it. Her eyes didn't move from her the girl asleep in the reclined chair, but she added more. "By the way, thank you again for befriending her. I don't think I could stand going back to Tokyo now if it weren't for you being with her. Her father is gone; she's all I have left. I'm trusting you to watch over her. If that's unreasonable of me, please tell me now. I'll quit my job and move here if I have to before I risk losing her."

Kyouko pondered the woman's words. _This won't end well_, she thought only to herself. _Most magical girls don't last their first year. Still, haven't I already committed to doing it anyway? I know Mami technically took Homura on because of her projectile talent just like I committed to train that bull-headed, sword fighting Sayaka, but I still feel responsible. Damn if Sayaka and Mami haven't made me all noble n' stuff now. Probably gonna get me killed, but at least I won't die alone and it beats the hell outta livin' like I was before. I have Sayaka to thank for that. Why'd she haveta go get herself toasted over some stupid boy just as we were gettin' close?_

"I'm not goin' anywhere anytime soon, Akemi-san. I can't promise to protect her any more than you could even if you were here, but I'll certainly be around for her." The two women locked eyes and, for once, Kyouko didn't use her magic to enhance trust. _If my sincerity isn't enough, then Homura'll just have to work it out herself with her mom._

"That's all I could ask, Sakura-san. Thank you again." The older woman seemed satisfied with that and proceeded to move her chair back beside Homura and sat quietly holding her daughter's hand.

"Akemi-san, I'm going to go for a few minutes to take care of something. I'll just be in the lobby and I'll be back in if anything happens, okay?"

Noriko nodded, clearly absorbed in her thoughts as she stared into her girl's now peacefully sleeping face.

Kyouko slipped out of the room and made her way back to the lobby where Mami and Kyubey were still standing by, available to respond again if anything new were to happen.

"Thanks again for coming," she expressed as she plopped down, spent and tired, in the chair next to Kyubey. Mami occupied the seat on the other side of the alien. "I know you had to bail from school to do it and'll have to deal with those teacher headaches again."

Mami shrugged. "My place is here, Sakura-san. It's clear now that we should all be here when she has these treatments. I don't think it's wise for her to continue them, but I can't see a way out without inviting unwanted scrutiny or forcing Akemi-san to leave her life behind. I don't have the heart just yet to push her to do that."

Kyouko nodded in agreement, then continued mentally to address the topic she had come to discuss. "_Kyubey, just what the Hell happened when Homura relaxed? It was like there was something or someone else feeding me calm."_

_"Akemi Homura's personality appears to be fragmenting since the passing of Miki Sayaka. What you sensed seemed to be a fragment of Homura's mind trying to calm the whole. It had the flavor of the energy that manifested when she made her wish. It could be that fragment managed to use compulsion magic like yours and fed calm into those around her. Because of the similarities with your talents, that fragment was able to synergize with you and together your powers were great enough to calm the fragment that was despairing."_ He paused a moment before completing the thought. "_It was so strong the calm affected even me, which is exceedingly irregular."_

_"Anxiety is an emotion, Kyubey",_ Mami pointed out with a smirk at the supposedly emotionless alien. "_You were sounding a bit frantic near the end."_

The cat-like alien didn't respond to the ridiculous intimation.

_"She mentioned that Madoka chick several times_," Kyouko remembered back, "_includin' when she finally chilled out."_

Kyubey didn't immediately respond, and so Mami chose to add her thoughts to what had already been theorized_. "What Kyubey is suggesting sounds a lot like something I've heard about called split personality. From what little I know about it, those affected can have different names, different skills, different everything. It may be the personality most stabilizing for her right now, the one that calmed you all, has that name. Akemi-san shouldn't have compulsion magic given her wish was the protection type, but perhaps this Madoka does. Akemi-san's core could be trying to protect it from anything that might want to destroy it, hence perhaps her paranoia about Kuybey, and it was that part that was able to marshal the magic to bring her whole self back into balance again. If I'm on the right track with this it means we can never be sure just how Akemi-san will respond to anything, or even with what magic or how strong that magic might be. I can only hope she collects herself together again soon, because with her power as it already stands, we'd have no choice but to destroy her if she loses herself and doesn't disappear."_

_"Assumin' we could even do it", _Kyouko admitted pensively in acknowledgement of Homura's still growing power.

Neither of the others chose to respond to that and they all seemed lost in their own private thoughts.

After several minutes, Kyouko began again, apparently back to her normal devil-may-care self that had allowed her to survive alone for a year after she split with Mami and before Sayaka drew her back. "_Well, I for one ain't gonna borrow trouble. Until the past coupla hours, she seemed to be doin' just fine except for those weird fantasies she was havin'. If what I felt really came from her, I can't believe she'll ever hurt anyone. Remember back to her wish, I just don't think she can."_

_"I hope you're right", _Mami thought back, trying to be confident but clearly still worried_. "She's a truly remarkable girl and I very much want to see her get through this."_

"Anyone else hungry?" Kyouko asked aloud now with a grin. "I left almost a whole sandwich behind and I'm still cranky about it. There's only one response for that."

"Another sandwich?" Mami supplied.

"Yup!" Kyouko held out a hand to Mami. Kyubey jumped up on Mami's shoulders as Mami took Kyouko's hand and rose. "I still have Akemi-san's card, so feel free to pig out for once. You eat like a bird, Mami. We need to fatten ya up a bit."

Mami looked across at Kyouko's chest and then down at her own with a growing grin.

"Okay, forget I said anythin'," Kyouko said with a scowl.

"As you wish," the blonde responded simply, doing her best not to giggle at her own joke.

**/*/**

The infusion had taken three hours to complete, and by the time it was done Homura had woken up again, although she was still quite dreamy.

"An MRI?" she asked the doctor to clarify, her face scrunching in concentration as she tried to process the news.

"Yes," the doctor responded. "I'd like to determine if your distress earlier is due to any changes in your brain. Your condition can develop into psychological complications as well as motor issues. It would be a poor prognostic sign and it would behoove us to catch that early. We have your MRI from 3 months ago before you started treatments and would like to compare the two."

Something about the idea troubled Homura, but in her muddled state she couldn't put her finger on it.

_"Kyouko, help me with this. Can you see any problem?"_

_"Yer askin' me? I never had any use for doctors."_

_"I can't imagine there'd be any issue_," Mami inserted from her seat down in the lobby where Kyouko had been feeding her the events in the treatment room. "_Your body is still what it was before, isn't it Kyubey?"_

_"From what I understand of the device the human is referring to, I would agree with Mami. Once you released your magical compensations, from a purely biological perspective everything should be working like it did before you became a magical girl."_

Homura could see her mom looking expectantly, a little concerned.

"That sounds fine, doctor. I think I'm just eager to get out of here."

"Fair enough," the man in the lab coat said agreeably. "I think as soon as the MRI is done and we pull the last lab work, you should be fine to go. Make sure you bring all your things with you. You can get dressed again there and leave right away assuming you continue to get lucid and have no more surprises. Your mother will be with you the next 24 hours, right?"

"Either I will be, or Sakura-san here," Noriko assured the physician. "Either way, we know she's not supposed to be left alone for 24 hours after the treatment."

"Good," the man smiled. "I love it when study subjects are as organized as you all are. Some of the people I work with make me want to tear my hair out and become a monk."

Before long, the three of them were seated waiting in the lobby outside the imaging department. Homura was in a wheelchair since she was still far too unsteady to walk any distance.

"Akemi Homura," a technician called out at the door leading to the various equipment used to image the human body.

Kyouko and Noriko rose and the older woman pushed the wheelchair up to the double doors.

"Um, I'm sorry but only one visitor beyond this point."

Noriko looked down at her daughter. "Which one of us do you want? I won't be hurt if you'd rather kill time with your friend if there's any delay."

"No mom, it's fine. I want you with me." The two women, mother and daughter, smiled as Noriko pushed the wheelchair past the doors leaving Kyouko to return to her seat.

_"Kyouko, you don't mind, do you? Unlike Mom, I can talk to you even out there."_

_"Nah, of course I dun mind. Like you said, you can blather on to me from just about anywhere with your rookie nonsense."_

_"Thanks Kyouko. I really am glad you're with me. I know I had some weird dreams during the infusion. I wish you or mom would tell me what happened. You both seem so somber about it."_

_"You just had a nightmare is all. No harm done."_

_"I didn't say anything to Mom that will make our lives more difficult, did I?"_

_"Not really. I did haveta tell her about Sayaka bein' missing. You were talkin' about that Madoka chick again. Something about grief and monsters. The idea of losing a close friend causing you to have nightmares seemed to satisfy her."_

_I" see. Poor Mom. I'm sure this will make it even harder for her to go back to Tokyo. She'll be so worried."_

_"She seems okay with it as long as I keep an eye on ya. Since I'd be doin' it anyway since you're such a pathetic newbie, it didn't put me out any."_

_"Pathetic newbie, am I? I'll remember that the next time you need sniper cover, senpai." _Homura managed to make the title a tease suggesting Kyouko was a lot older than she was.

Kyouko smiled despite Homura being unable to see it. "_You're still pathetic, rookie, but I'll keep ya around for the entertainment value if nothin' else. Anyway, finish up in there. I'm sicka this place. Like I said, I never liked doctors."_

"We should be able to get you in and out right away," the technician said cheerfully to Homura as she was wheeled to the room. We had a cancellation and the machine is open right now. You're already in a gown. Just make sure you remove any metal and we should be good to go. You don't have any implantable devices right?"

Homura shook her head. "No, I've never had any surgeries." She felt her ears to make sure she didn't have earrings on, and her earlobes were clear. "I think I'm good."

"Your ring, sweetheart," her mother supplied.

"Yes, the ring has to go. Same with your glasses. The machine is a great big magnet. Any metal not only might go flying, but it would also become super hot and burn you. I'd also ask you to remove the hair ribbon. It's cloth, but since we're imaging your brain we really need it to be clear. Except for the hospital gown, we need you to take off anything that isn't part of you."

Homura's stomach dropped as she finally figured out what had been nagging her since the news she was going to have an MRI. _My soul gem! Of course I can't have it with me for this. But it's not only part of me, it IS me!_

"Honey it's just for a little while," her mother assured her. "I'll hold it for you if you want."

_"Homura, what's goin' on in there?" _Kyouko's mental voice sounded urgently in her head._ "Someone's trying to take your soul gem?"_

Homura struggled to calm herself, recognizing in her dismay that she had been broadcasting her private thoughts. Handing herself over to anyone, even her own mother, felt no different to her than placing one's head on a cocked and ready guilloutine would for a human. She was entrusting her very existence to someone else. Images of the terrible things she had seen through the timelines filled her mind and she had to fight to maintain control of herself against them.

_"Give me a minute, Kyouko. I'm fine; I just have put myself in a pickle."_

"Honey, are you okay?"

"Um, yeah," she said uncomfortably to her mother. "It's just that the ring means a lot to me. More than anything else I'll ever own. I promised a friend I'd never part with it."

"Sayaka?"

"Kyouko told you?" Homura asked, knowing the answer but needing to go through the motions since she wasn't supposed to know her mom knew about her missing friend.

Her mother nodded. "I noticed Sakura-san also has a ring like it. You girls must be very close and made some kind of friendship pact."

Homura nodded. _She's eerily close to the truth with that_, Homura thought to herself alone. "Pretty much." _Please Mom, get me out of this._

"I can respect that," the older Akemi nodded thoughtfully and Homura started to relax. "Here's the deal. If it's like 3 months ago, I think I'll be able to sit just outside the door. I promise I won't go any further than that and you'll have it back as soon as they let me back in."

Homura looked up at her mother and saw sincerity. Despite the panic pounding in the back of her mind driven by the knowledge of the worst magical girls could do to each other, she wanted to believe in this woman who had always been there for her…if perhaps not for the frightened girl who had lived a much different childhood. "Promise?"

"Promise," her mom said with a smile and held out her pinky.

Homura couldn't help but smile at the reminder of her youth. The simple gesture provided her the leverage she needed to push the girl who had seen far too much into a corner and wall her off. "Pinky swear," she said as she linked her own little finger with her mom's.

"Pinky swear," her mom responded in kind.

Homura took a deep breath as she removed the ribbon from her hair before then removing the ring from her finger. She examined it briefly, marveling again over just how amazing the last month, or the last 60 years, had been. She then let the breath out as she took her mom's hand and placed the ring on her mom's pinky, the one she had just swore with. Knowing it was a risk either way, she held her own hands over her mother's as she adjusted the size of the ring so that it was far too snug to take back off without removing the knuckle.

_Insurance, _Homura assured herself, trying to appease the frantic emotions still fighting to get out.

"You promised," she confirmed one last time, looking directly in her mother's eyes.

Her mother nodded. "You're my daughter. I'll always protect you, and part of that means being true to my word."

With that Homura released her mom's hands, leaving the ribbon as well as the ring, and turned to the technician. "Let's get this over with as quickly as we can."

It took just a few minutes for her to get settled in the device, strapped in and ready to be placed inside it. As she allowed herself to be ministered to, she shared the details of what had happened with Kyouko and Mami.

_"You're nuts, you know that_," Kyouko expressed irritably, but true to her word she didn't storm in like she had originally expressed a desire to do.

_"You're right_," Homura agreed, knowing full-well the recklessness of her actions, but firm in her faith of her mother's sincerity and her friends' ability to protect her mother…and her soul…against anything that might randomly happen in the next 30 minutes. "_Then again, I have you both watching out for me too. If I can't trust the two of you, then there's no sense in any of this since I'll be wraith bait. I learned trust from you two and my mother_."

_In this reality, at least. My other self never knew trust. Not even at the very end. As Sayaka said to me near her end in the last timeline, I've given up on everything._ These last thoughts were kept to herself alone as she took the opportunity in the long, isolated tube to sort through yet more memories. She had won a battle just now, but she knew she was losing the war. _I don't know who I am anymore…_

**/*/**

Once Homura was dismissed by the doctor for the day, she lost no time clearing her body of the drugs and returning it to her new normal. It felt exhilarating to be healthy again, although for her mother's benefit she did her best to keep acting as if she was still recovering from the treatment.

"Tomoe-san," Homura feigned surprise as she met up with her blonde mentor who had been waiting in the lobby the whole time. "I thought you'd still be at school."

"Sakura-san contacted me during lunch to tell me you were having a rough time of it, so I left campus in case I was needed. You're worth dealing with the truancy office later." Mami flashed her gorgeous smile as she looked over at Homura's mother.

"I'm glad you came," Homura said, her sentiments now not feigned in the slightest. "Tomoe-senpai, I'd like to introduce you to my mother, Akemi Noriko. Mom, this is my upperclassman mentor, Tomoe Mami."

Homura watched as Mami curtsied in her short school uniform skirt. "Akemi-san, it is an honor to make your acquaintance. You have a remarkable daughter and I'm glad to have her as my kohai."

Akemi Noriko's eyes widened at the unusual grace of the girl. She then smiled widely as she bowed and responded. "The honor is shared, Tomoe-san. Thank you for helping take such good care of my daughter in my absence. I hope she's no trouble. Like with Sakura-san, I am in your debt."

"Any trouble has been due to her inexperience, Akemi-san, and is more than made up for by her talents and personality. She and I share the experience of being students living alone here in town, so it's been natural that we gravitated to each other for support."

"Oh, how interesting," Noriko expressed, clearly intrigued. "Where are your parents? I'd love to meet them someday. Like the two of you enjoy supporting each other, I'd be nice to talk sometime with someone who's going through what I am."

Mami's smile faded slightly and Homura was unsure how to handle the situation.

_"Shall I explain it?_ Homura mentally. "_It might be less awkward."_

_"I'm fine, Akemi-san, but thank you for your concern. I meant everything I said about you to your mother_."

"Unfortunately, Akemi-san, that won't be possible, at least not in this lifetime. My parents both died in an automobile accident."

Noriko's face took on a pained expression, her sympathy clear. "Oh. I'm sorry for causing you more pain, Tomoe-san."

"It's fine, Akemi-san," Mami assured Noriko. "I miss them, of course, but I have much to keep me busy now. I have been formed by my experiences, and I wouldn't want to change anything since I wouldn't be who I am today if I did."

"That's a remarkably deep outlook," Noriko shared, clearly impressed. "You're wise beyond your years, Tomoe-san, as is Sakura-san for all her grammar could use work." Noriko smirked at the redhead who just scowled and rolled her eyes.

"I just ain't out to impress anyone," Kyouko said with a shrug. "Take me or leave me, I am who I am and I ain't changin'."

Noriko shook her head, clearly humored by the redhead's outlook. "I doubt you'll ever get into a school with that outlook, but I must admit I envy you the free-spirit." She chuckled. "You strike me as some kind of female Peter Pan. I know it's silly, but I can imagine you just like this 50 years from now and likely far happier than your peers who spent their whole lives trying to be someone they weren't."

The image the woman conjured up was remarkably similar to statements Mami had made during the time Kyouko was on her own living a much more self-centered life. Homura hadn't been around then, but she had heard the stories. Kyouko's jaw dropped and Mami started giggling.

"Mom, you're embarrassing me," Homura said as she grabbed the woman's arm and started dragging her out of the facility and into the early summer afternoon, and in the process allowing Mami and Kyouko to compose themselves from the different reactions. Not that she wasn't struggling to maintain her own composure as well.

_"So Peter-senpai, where shall we get Mom to take us for dinner tonight?"_

_"Who's Peter?" _Kyubey asked innocently, as usual clearly confused by the humans and their emotions.

Whatever answer Kyouko might have given at that moment was drown out by Mami's mental laughter.

* * *

*****Real-World Author's Note*****

For those who are re-reading the chapter from before 8/28/2012, you will note changes in Kyouko to reconcile her with canon. I made an additional round of changes on 9/9/2012 to reconcile the significant downstream story line changes adjusting Kyouko created. The new story line is MUCH deeper, darker, and more complex. I'm excited to take on the challenge, though, and hope everyone appreciated the result as it evolves over time.

One of the things I liked about PMMM was the interaction between Madoka and her mom. As a mother of two myself, I have to admit my favorite character in PMMM is Madoka's Mom, Kaname Junko. As a successful professional woman and mother making my way in a man's world, she's my hero.

As noted, comments via review or PM are greatly appreciated. This is my first effort at PMMM fanfiction and I'm very open to different perspectives, corrections, or encouragement.


	3. A Mother's Loss

Margin Note

Of the many painful things I've personally experienced over the years, the loss of my daughters was the most devastating. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children, whatever the circumstances. That said, at least I have always known the fate of my offspring. I can't imagine what it must be like for all the mothers who innocently send their girl off to school one day and simply never see her again. Madoka's Blessing is a bittersweet thing; She leaves no body to mourn any more than did the witches of the universe before Her. My heart goes out to each and every mother throughout history who lost her beautiful and brave daughter without ever knowing why.

~F

* * *

**A Mother's Loss**

___Saturday, May 21_  
(A little over three weeks after Sagitta Luminis,  
Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)

"Next is Akemi-san, a classmate of Miki-san's who was the last reported acquaintance to see her before her disappearance. Security cameras visually documented her interaction with Miki Sayaka in a bus stop shelter approximately 90 minutes before her last documented sighting."

Homura, dressed properly in her Mitakihara Junior High School uniform, was sitting at a table facing a room of people made up of press, law enforcement and government officials, and curious citizens. Efforts to find Sayaka had been unsuccessful and her parents, who had been estranged before Sayaka's disappearance, had come together in order to work tirelessly in their very public effort to get the word out and find their daughter.

The extent of their success at getting public attention was phenomenal given unexplained disappearances were a common enough occurance as to rarely note acknowledgement in the media unless the lost person was some kind of public figure. Although Homura knew the effort to be doomed to failure from the start, just as she knew WHY traceless disappearances were so common in this world, she couldn't exactly explain to the world what had really happened, press conference or no. Instead, she found herself after classes this Saturday afternoon seated in a row of people including Sayaka's parents, her teacher, the school principal, and her classmate Shizuki Hitomi.

Homura leaned forward into the microphone on the table before her and began her part of the story. "As Saotome-sensei and Shizuki-san have already explained, Miki-san has been having a rough time lately."

In the corner of her eye, she could see the normally self-assured Hitomi once again cringe at the mention of the 'personal issue' which had been identified as a 'key fact' related to their friend's disappearance. The green-haired girl's confession to Sayaka's childhood friend, Kamijou Kyousuke, was now public knowledge all over the prefecture. In fact, it was the drama of just this fact which had enabled the Miki family to shoehorn their cause into the generally jaded public eye.

_People see what they want to see._

Kyouko's words of a few days past passed through Homura's internal thoughts as she marveled over how unquestioningly accepting humanity seemed to be of the supernatural phenomenon occurring around them but out of their perception...other than the disappearances. _Like sheep to the slaughter_, Homura mused, not for the first time since gaining her new memories wondering why Madoka's world had turned out this way.

Homura's darkening thoughts were quickly interrupted as she noted Miki Ai, Sayaka's mother, reaching out her hand and placing it on the distressed girl's arm to help calm her. Curiously, and despite the shameless use of Hitomi's story by Sayaka's mother to help propel their case in the media, the two had become very supportive of each other after Hitomi's rather spectacular, and very Japanese, prostration before the elder Miki as she begged forgiveness for her part in the travesty that was Sayaka's recent actions.

_"Where does that little bitch get off starting the water works every time it's pointed out this whole thing is her fault?"_ Kyouko's angry mental voice sounded in Homura's head and the younger magical girl looked down, feigning emotion she should be feeling but wasn't, while she dealt with her mentor's infamous temper.

_"Tomoe-san_," Homura sent privately to their mutual blonde friend, her mental voice intentionally conveying her irritation.

_"Is Sakura-san editorializing again?"_ Mami responded in the same private manner.

_"Yes_," was Homura's simple answer.

_"I'm on it."_

Although the two were sitting in the back of the room, Homura could see Mami elbow Kyouko and she suspected the two were now engaged in their own private conversation. Kyouko's rising agitation was clear by the enthusiasm with which she was tearing into an apple she had pulled from a rather large and full brown paper bag. Homura was just glad to be left alone to keep up her act in front of the whole world.

"Miki-san and I were talking about her situation when we ran into the shelter to avoid the rain. The conversation was…stressed…with me trying to encourage her to look forward and not back. In the end she ran off, telling me not to follow her. I haven't seen her since."

Homura leaned back again into her chair, choosing to leave her description of the intensely personal event vague and hoping that would be allowed. With any luck the interrogations, and her web of 'creative interpretations of the events' which had played out in private with the police, wouldn't be repeated publicly at the press conference. As it was, she knew she was leaning heavily on her stoic other self to get through it all, and losing yet more of herself in exchange.

_How was I supposed to know I should have called the police at that point? _She thought didactically, strictly to herself._ At the time I had no idea what she was going to do. That was before I got colony dropped by all these new memories. And even now I know there wasn't really anything we could have done for her, much less by those who aren't one of us. Once she makes the wish for that boy, she falls fast. There was never an exception. Not once._

As the public relations officer started to speak again it became clear she was off the hook and Homura relaxed slightly, trying her best to find her own center again rather than continuing to lean on her admittedly more confident and calculating self. She was sitting on the other side of Hitomi from Sayaka's mom and, in defiance of the emotionally distant girl she was threatening to become, a girl who steadfastly refused to reach out to anyone, she placed her hand comfortingly on her classmate's shoulder. Hitomi broke down for the second time, leaning into Homura and crying softly against her.

_"Traitor."_

At first Homura wasn't entirely sure whether the voice was the increasingly persistent and influential one in the back of her head or a certain indignant redhead in the back of the room. Given their similarly dubious esteem for the girl now attached to her shoulder it could easily have been either, but a quick look in the direction of the physically manifest girl essentially confirmed the origin of the quip.

_"Mami_," Homura sent to them both this time, her vexation evident in her mental voice if perhaps not on her still very public face. "_If she doesn't shut up you have my permission to shoot her. Use the big gun, please."_

Homura wasn't looking in the direction of her two magical girl friends anymore, rather directing her attention to the girl grieving against her, but she still could feel the weight of Kyouko's glare. She ignored it, given she had more pressing matters up front.

"Thank you, Akemi-san," the police press specialist who was helping coordinate the conference said. "I know this is hard."

"Yes, sir," was Homura's only response as Hitomi continued to cling to her and Homura ran her hand comfortingly down the girl's light-green hair, her voice making quiet soothing noises when she wasn't speaking. She could almost visualize the disapproving scowl of her other self over the unabashed display of compassion, see herself turn around with the characteristic Homura hair toss that seemed to cross all timelines and walk away in irritated disinterest.

_You may be dead inside, but I'm not. At least not yet. I'll let you lead when it makes sense, but kindly allow me what I'm good at._

The conference proceeded to switch to a police detective who described that Sayaka had next been seen about 10 minutes later on security cameras in the adjacent train stop over where the girl had boarded the next arriving train. As that train did its loop run, cameras on the train had documented her interaction with two unsavory men who had since been questioned multiple times.

Although the men were clearly a potential risk for a girl like Sayaka, nothing had been found to connect the two after Sayaka apparently left the train as it looped back around to the nearest main station to her school. The term 'apparently' was necessary since unexplained interference had prevented cameras from functioning in that station during the period when Sayaka's train had arrived. She had been on the train along with the two men when it arrived at the station, and she wasn't on the train when it departed but the two men still were. The men denied any culpability, and no evidence other than circumstantial could be found to suggest foul play on their part. Sayaka had never been seen again by any reliable witness or electronic device once the train approached the station.

Homura listened to this story, mentally filling in the blanks from her own experiences during that evening when her own life had dramatically changed. Sayaka had indeed left the train at the station, but her reason was not only because it was familiar but also because the miasma had become dense in that area and there was a wraith grid forming, hence the camera interference. Sayaka engaged the wraiths alone at first rather than wait for help from her fellow magical girls. Sayaka's overall power had always been modest, and in her pre-existing despair she had resorted to extreme methods in the fight. By the time the others had arrived, Sayaka had already lost her mind. Homura shot the last wraith as Kyouko had run up to grab hold of Sayaka. The grid had fallen before she could be reached, and Sayaka had disappeared with it.

_Apparently not even Madoka could save that girl once she made her wish_, Homura thought to herself, at turns both sad and cross as she found herself remembering back to the times Sayaka had self-destructed over various timelines…memories she had gained that very night Sayaka had disappeared.

Once the rest of the details had been explained by the police, Miki Ai and her husband stood and took to the podium where the detectives had been speaking. Sayaka's father was first to take the microphone.

"Hello," the middle aged man began as he read from a prepared statement, clearly working hard to maintain his composure, "my name is Miki Tetsuya and I'm Sayaka's father. We want to thank everyone from the school to the transit system to law enforcement who are working tirelessly to help find Sayaka. Thank you especially to everyone who has been interviewed to help find clues as to what happened to our daughter. We know how stressful that can be, but I'm sure we all want to leave no stone unturned in the search. We will never be able to thank you enough for that help. Finally, we would like to thank the media. If it were not for you showing Sayaka on every newscast, printing her story in the papers, her story wouldn't be known to everyone. People from around the region have seen her picture. This is a tremendous help and we're very grateful. Please help us find our daughter." With that, the man had to retreat from the microphone into his wife's embrace.

After a few moments holding her husband, Miki Ai collected herself before approaching the podium, her own voice quivering with her emotion as she spoke from the heart. "Sayaka, sweetheart. If you can hear me, please know we love you, we miss you, we need you home now. We're doing everything we can to help get you back to us as soon as possible. We'll work everything out, I promise. I know we failed as parents for you, but please forgive us, honey. We believe in you and we'll never give up looking for you." With that the woman broke down into sobs and her husband took her into his arms and led her back to the table where the two, in addition to Hitomi, tried to find solace as the press conference was ended with words from the police, asking anyone with additional information regarding the events that night or afterwards to please come forward immediately. Boilerplate stuff that never really let anywhere in this world.

As Homura stood by to assist Hitomi if needed, Kyouko's voice sounded again in her head. "_So first the little bitch knifes Sayaka in the back by stealin' her boy, and now she's weaselin' her way into stealin' her mom. Remind me again why you two are bein' so protective of her? I said I wouldn't kill her, just bloody her a bit. A few scars here and there so she looks outside like she does inside."_

_"And what would that accomplish, Sakura-san?"_ Mami's voice responded. "_Don't forget that Shizuki-san was Miki-san's friend."_

_"Can you be so sure now, Mami?"_ Kyouko retorted. "_Why don't you go ask her? Oh wait, we can't, now can we?" _Kyouko stood up without looking at Mami and strode toward the front of the room against the flow of people making their exit. Her eyes connected with Homura's.

Homura coolly returned Kyouko's angry glare, realizing she wouldn't have been able to do so under the circumstances even a week ago. She found the measure of how much she was changing very unnerving, yet at the moment she had no choice but to fully embrace her other self and let it entirely guide her. "_Kyouko, I won't let you hurt her_." Her mental voice and glare both carried steel as she moved to stand between the redhead and the front of the room where the other speakers were still collected.

_"Why are you so protective of the little bitch?" _Kyouko pressed angrily as she stopped near the front of the rows of chairs currently emptying as everyone else began filing out_. "I really don't get it. You barely know her."_

_"I know her better than you think. I'm sure you'll dismiss it, but the two times Shizuki-san made a contract with Kyubey, it was over the disappearance of Miki-san. Both times she wished for Miki-san to come back. Neither time was pretty at all given Miki-san had already become a witch. Both times Miki-san was a witch again within 24 hours and Shizuki-san with her. I'm not sure what that kind of wish would mean in this universe, but something tells me I don't want to find out. You're talking about just enhancing her angst, which we all know makes girls more interesting to Kyubey. I won't allow Hitomi to make a contract."_

_"Okay, so then let me kill her," _Kyouko offered, seemingly quite comfortable with the logical solution to the problem.

_"Kyouko_!" Mami's exasperated mental voice rang out with her exceedingly rare use of a given name.

_"That girl killed Sayaka and is getting away with it. Not only that, she's taking everything that was Sayaka's in the process. First her boy, then her mom, and now apparently even her new best friend. I can't stand watchin' it."_

_"No, Kyouko, Hitomi didn't kill Sayaka_, _Sayaka killed Sayaka." _Homura corrected her mentor coldly, choosing first to be direct and second not to quibble over the details of Sayaka's demise. Homura believed in her heart Sayaka wasn't exactly dead as it were given what she knew of Madoka's wish and what her other self had experienced in the eternal moments before she re-entered the universe…her universe. "_In the end, Sayaka was offered help and refused it. If you want to blame someone, go blame Kyubey for omitting the part about our soul gems really being our souls and our bodies being essentially remote control when Sayaka made her wish. You know full-well that's what doomed her in the end."_

_"Oh trust me, I'm not happy with him either."_

_"But taking it out on Kyubey won't give you any satisfaction whereas making Hitomi hurt will?" _Homura looked briefly back at the classmate in question who was now moving to talk with Kyousuke. The boy, still dependent on crutches, was sitting at the far end of the front row away from Kyouko.

Despite the distance between the two and the redhead, Homura still moved slightly to maintain her interference position – knowing full well that distance would mean exactly nothing if Kyouko were to decide to disregard reason and act out in her current passion._ "That's really helpful. What do you think that little Mami clone would have to say about THAT as her legacy? Remember how she was so strong in her sense of justice that she even moved you? Even near the end before she disappeared she shared with me that you letting go of your bitterness was one of the few good things to come out of her becoming a magical girl. Do you really want to ruin that?"_

Kyouko glared at Homura a moment more, then turned and strode again to the back of the room.

_"Sakura-san, we know you and Miki-san were becoming close before the end. It's normal to feel angry when you grieve someone you care about."_

_"Fuck off, Mami", _Kyouko said sharply as she switched direction to head for the door_. "You've already got one girl on your couch right now. I'm not interested in being part of your shrunken head collection. You have my word I won't hurt the conniving bitch, assuming she never gets in my way a' course. You can stick the rest of it up that uptight ass of yours. I'm going to find somethin' I can kill without you two bleedin' hearts whinin' over it. I'd suggest you stay outta my way right now. You especially, Kyubey. I know you're listening from somewhere. Ya always are."_

Homura watched as Kyouko angrily pushed her way past others and stormed out the door.

_"She just needs time to process_," Mami assured her kohai.

_"I know_," Homura responded with a sigh. "_I just don't need any of this on top of everything else I'm dealing with. Truth be told, right now I'm finding it hard to care about what happens to Hitomi. I have memories of killing her myself when she stood in my way of saving Madoka. It would certainly prevent her from contracting which is what really matters to me, so in some ways I wouldn't be overly disturbed if Kyouko were to kill her assuming it was done discreetly. I know that should bother me, it would have bothered me a lot two weeks ago, and yet it doesn't now. That's bothering me."_

_"You really expected me to follow that train of logic?"_

Homura could see the bemused arched eyebrow that came with this comment from across the room and smiled slightly._ "Not really."_

Mami bent down to pick up a mostly full bag of apples, sitting where the owner had left them as she stormed out of the building, and rose from her seat in order to make her way out of the room, albeit much more calmly and considerately than had the recently departed redhead. "_It looks like you're about to be interrupted. I'm going to follow Sakura-san and make sure she doesn't do anything ill advised while she's off acting her hair color. She wouldn't have left the apples here if she didn't really want me to follow her, regardless of her words."_

Homura had to chuckle mentally at the observations even as she schooled her expression in anticipation for whatever was coming behind her.

"Akemi-san?"

Homura turned to see Miki Ai standing what had just recently been behind her. "Yes, Miki-san?"

"I just wanted to thank you again for being Sayaka's friend, even if just for the few weeks you've been at the school before she…" the older woman's eyes looked down as she stumbled over the unsaid 'disappeared'.

"It really was nothing, Miki-san," Homura assured the woman as she struggled to connect again with her feelings after the recent intense telepathic exchange. "I'm the one who has her to thank, if anything. She was the first one to reach out to me and make me feel comfortable at school here."

_It's strange, _Homura thought as she spoke with Sayaka's mother_, how much Sayaka filled the role Madoka had before. She was even the class nurse's aide and the one who helped magic me through the high jump the first day. On the other hand, this time Sayaka saved _**me**_ when _**I**_ tried to stop the suicide group, which was caused by wraiths this time, instead of her saving Madoka. And then I was the one who tried to save Sayaka in the bus stop. Sayaka and I together filled almost all the gaps left by Madoka in this timeline. I wonder how much Madoka had to do with bringing us so close together?_

As Homura thought this, she found herself reflexively reaching up to finger the precious red ribbon in her hair. She could sense her other self wincing at the memories and her own blunt acknowledgement of how Madoka was now erased from anyone's knowledge except her own, reduced to simply a concept…however potent a concept 'hope for all magical girls' might be. As much as she wanted to allow herself time to ponder all this and console herself, she had to return her focus to the woman who was continuing the conversation unaware of the internal dialog occurring in the girl before her.

"It makes me happy to hear that she had such an impact on you," Miki-san smiled sadly. "I know so little about her life the past couple of years. With the silly thing that had come between her father and I...I horribly neglected her and I feel so guilty about it now. I should have been there for her. She had become so independent and it was so easy to just let her do her own thing. I see now I should have been more involved."

"Maybe, but she might have resented it. She liked her freedom."

"I suppose," Miki-san admitted with a sigh, then cocked her head to one side as a thought came to her. "You live alone here, don't you Akemi-san?"

Homura nodded, suddenly wary, unsure where the conversation was going.

"Be careful, child," Miki-san said, taking Homura in her arms. "In hindsight, I should have been watching over both of you and making sure you weren't out late all the time. I should have made sure my house was inviting enough that you were fine hanging out there. I'm sure your mother worries with you being here alone. I don't want her to have to go through what I'm going through."

Homura briefly squeezed the older woman holding her and then gently disengaged from the unnerving closeness before looking up at her and meeting her eyes. Despite her increasing coolness towards others, she felt moved to comfort the hurting woman. _This is the mother of Madoka's childhood best friend,_ the voice in Homura's head sounded and she felt for once the other presence allow her uncontested center stage. _Over sixty years of repetition and you never did learn to handle people, did you, Homura? _she thought at herself.

She wasn't sure at first what to say, but words seemed to pop into her mind. From where, she hadn't any clue, since it certainly wasn't inspired by any of her other experiences, but she wasn't complaining at the moment. She tried her best to be reassuring, trying to bring the woman some sense of peace. "My mom does worry, but she has faith in me. You should have faith in Sayaka. I don't know where she is any more than you do, but I'm sure wherever she is she's making a difference. She's one of the bravest girls I know and lives to help those around her. It's what makes Sayaka, Sayaka."

As had happened occasionally during the past two weeks when interacting with Hitomi or others related to Sayaka's disappearance, Homura felt her magic active but had no idea what it was doing. As during the other times, she didn't have the luxury to examine the odd sensation. Her other self, the distrusting one, didn't seem to notice or mind so she decided again not to worry about it as she watched the woman before her think about the words and relax a bit.

"I can see that now. Strange how the absence of someone makes you truly see them." Miki-okaasan smiled as she continued speaking. "Sayaka's always been a fighter, you know. When I was in labor, she almost died. The cord got pinched and her heart almost stopped. She fought, though, and made it through just fine. Later on in school she had this thing against bullies." The woman's smile widened at this memory and she chuckled. "Rarely did a week go by that she didn't come home bruised after having defended yet another girl, or even the occasional boy like gentle little Kamijou-san, from being hurt. She was always looking out for others. At the time I didn't appreciate it. It meant repeated trips to the school to take responsibility for her actions, which were an inconvenience. I never told her how proud I was of her." The woman's smile remained, but tears started streaming along the sides of her cheeks. "She grew up so much when I wasn't paying attention. I regret that so much, now. I just wish I could have the chance to tell her how truly proud I am of her."

Through the timelines Miki Sayaka had always been a two dimensional figure for Homura, either a tool or an obstacle in the effort to save Madoka. Never had the time traveler given much thought to why the blue-haired spitfire had been the way she was, what motivated her, or what kind of people had formed her. Even before meeting Mami, the bravery Sayaka had shown in defending Madoka was exceptional. In the last timeline it was Sayaka who stood and resolutely defended Madoka from the presumed danger Homura presented…armed only with a fire extinguisher. There was no doubt these new revelations were having an effect on the girl aged beyond her apparent years.

Homura placed a hand on the woman's forearm as she said the next words that came to mind. "She knows, Miki-san. I didn't know her very long, but it was clear to me that your opinion of her meant a lot. She wanted to become the kind of person who would deserve your trust in her. I think she did. You have a lot to be proud of and you should have faith in her. She's alright."

The woman smiled and nodded. She seemed about to say something else when her husband, Hitomi, and Kyousuke came to stand with them. It was the paternal Miki who next spoke. "Kamijou-san has pointed out how little we've all been eating lately and he's right. I don't think Sayaka would appreciate us all wasting away while she's gone. It doesn't do her or us any good. Please everyone, let me take us out to an early dinner and let's try to make it a little light-hearted." The man then looked to each of them with a worried smile, clearly anxious about how his proposal might be misconstrued.

Homura watched as the others accepted the offer graciously. Although she didn't feel terribly enthusiastic over the idea, she sensed her presence was doing something even if she had no idea exactly what. Despite all that had happened over all the timelines, all the times she had fought with the blue-haired girl and all the times she had watched her die…occasionally at her own hands, Homura knew that the girl missing from these peoples' lives had been Madoka's dearest friend, along with her family the center of Madoka's world until the end of the final timeline.

_This is what Madoka would want._

"So, where are we going to eat?" Homura said despite her reservations.

* * *

**Real-world dedication**_: I dedicate this chapter to the biological parents of Kyron Hormon and all the parents of children who go missing without a trace. Much of the interview material quoted in this story was paraphrased or quoted from the real thing, adjusted to be relevant to a teenaged girl. As a parent, there is nothing I can imagine more frightening than to have my children simply disappear. ~Gwen_

* * *

**Acknowledgement**: I wish to thank linkhyrule5 for his marvelous review assistance. As will be noted below, I readily admit my knowledge of Madoka canon is limited to the series and only recently the drama CD's and Oriko. I recognise I have holes in my database, yet I am enough of a purist to want to get it 'right'. This chapter has benefited greatly from the alternate perspective as well as a different set of eyes.

* * *

**A/N**: Thank you to my reviewers. Because of you, and those who have favorited this little effort of mine, I'll continue it. I am grateful to each of you who favorited or 'stickied' this story. It feels good to know there are people who like this stuff. Reviews are always welcome, and they may impact how I go about this as my next paragraph will make clear.

A word on punctuation convention. Telepathy is a well established skill of magical girls and incubators, and the humans who communicate with them. All thoughts, whether internal or broadcast, are in _italics_. To facilitate differentiation between internal dialog and thoughts meant for broadcast, those thoughts intended for sharing are in _"italicized quotations"_. Note, occasionally there are internal thoughts that are picked up or unintentionally broadcast. These will (hopefully) be identified clearly in the story.

For those new to my methods, I maintain updated comments about my stories in my profile. If you are curious about progress and when to expect new chapters, you can find out there.

In closing I'll admit to being an unabashed shoujo writer. This is Mahou Shoujo after all! I write feelings and emotions and focus on (gasp!) relationships. I think my efforts will complement the shonen-esque sci fi focus that is prevalent here on the FFN PMMM section. That said, I'm enough of a fan to want to get it 'right', even if I write like a girl. ;-)


	4. A Mother's Melancholy

**A/N:** A word on punctuation convention. Telepathy is a well established skill of magical girls and incubators, and the humans who communicate with them. All thoughts, whether internal or broadcast, are in _italics_. To facilitate differentiation between internal dialog and thoughts meant for broadcast, those thoughts intended for sharing are in _"italicized quotations"_. Note, occasionally there are internal thoughts that are picked up or unintentionally broadcast. These will (hopefully) be identified clearly in the story.

Near to the end of the chapter, internal dialog gets really challenging for Homura. For Homura, the convention adjusts to differentiate between 'soul fragments'.

{thought} is internal thinking by the new universe Homura.  
{"dialog"} is internal dialog from new universe Homura to time-traveler Homura  
[thought] is internal thinking by the time-traveler Homura.  
["dialog"] is internal dialog from time-traveler Homura to new universe Homura

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Margin Note

I find it interesting to note that the most potent puella magi in history, any history that I have been privy to, have been given birth to by women who themselves made their own miracles without the need of the rats' help. The archtype for this observation is, of course, the mother of Kaname Madoka who, when asked by Madoka what she would wish for if she could have any wish, proceeded to describe how she would turn her company upside down by her own hand. Young Madoka considered her mom a little 'scary', even _after_ becoming a magical girl, which says a lot about the woman who raised her. Although in later timelines I only knew of her peripherally, since Homura prevented Madoka from contracting until the very end of each timeline, if at all, I think Kaname Junko was one of the most consistent elements throughout the timelines. From what I have observed through Homura of her mother in this timeline, I suspect the same would hold true of Akemi Noriko despite her initial terrible flaws. Those two girls exist in a tier all by themselves, of course, but at the risk of seeming conceited, my daughters were among the most powerful puella magi in this universe's history and I made my own magic in my own way before my girls gained theirs and the weasels discovered the price of my damning loyalty. If Madoka's Universe has an iota of kindness left over for those of us who never made a wish, I would hope fate will allow we three mothers to share a drink together sometime.

~F

**A Mother's Melancholy**

___Saturday, May 21_  
(A little over three weeks after Sagitta Luminis,  
Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)

_How can I hope to compete with the 'very best friend' of Hope itself?_ Homura thought with a sigh, chuckling mildly to herself at the irony.

The dark haired girl was currently walking home in a surprisingly good mood considering the tenor of her present thoughts. Dinner had been lovely; surprisingly so. The force of nature that was her other self was apparently wise enough to recognise that despite decades of experience, or perhaps because of it, she was out of her element in touchy-feely situations. As a result, for the first time in weeks the Homura indigenous to the present timeline was unfettered and unencumbered by the potent, determined, and single-minded personality that had lived decades for nothing but to protect a beloved friend who, in the end, had still been lost to her.

_I should probably be resentful or something, but I can't be. Even without her direct influence, I'm already a different and better person for her arrival. Even though she would never have survived the evening I just had, the emotional intimacy, I would never have been confident enough without her to have handled myself like I did._

In many ways, the meal had taken on the form of a wake. Although no one directly acknowledged that Sayaka might never be coming back, might indeed no longer be of this world, conversation had taken a distinct 'remembrance' tone. Despite her having been acquainted with Sayaka in hundred of timelines, it had been quickly reinforced through the storytelling that Homura had never actually known the passionate, idealistic young girl. Then again, the Homura that had lived all those lives had quickly ceased caring about what made anyone other than Kaname Madoka tick…and even then she'd failed to the end to ever truly understand the pink-haired girl. It seemed to the girl sharing a soul with that Homura that little had changed, and she found that thought unnerving.

_This afternoon I've taken back most of what I had lost to her in the territory that's my mind and heart, and yet it's clear to me what's left is already a mixture of us both. I become more like her, little by little, every day. I wonder if she's changing at all? I doubt it. She still is afraid to yield even an inch for fear she'll lose herself entirely._

Homura knew the current détente would be short lived and she would soon again be at the center of a struggle to determine just who she would be the rest of her life, but for now she was disinclined to borrow trouble. For now, she was content just enjoying a quiet stroll by herself.

_What a lovely evening_, she thought pleasantly, taking a deep breath and enjoying the moment, the waning day as the sun threatened to cast long shadows, knowing the peace in her mind and heart likely wouldn't last long. _In another hour I'll be Magical Girl Homura fighting wraiths in defense of a city that has no idea of the dangers lurking in the shadows, but for right now I'm just Homura._

That thought actually made her remember something she hadn't thought about for several hours.

"_Kyubey, can you hear me?"_

"_Yes, Homura,"_ the alien's 'voice' answered immediately in her head.

"_How are Kyouko and Mami?"_

"_I'm not exactly sure. They went across the prefecture to Kasamino City. They are currently outside of my range."_

_Kasamino City_, Homura thought to herself. _There's only one reason I can think of for them to go all the way out there if wraiths aren't involved, and if there were then Kyubey would have gone with them. Kyouko never talked much about her past with me, but from the other timelines it seemed pretty consistent how Kyouko became a magical girl. I guess Mami managed to get through to her and they're having 'a talk'._

To Kyubey she responded, "_I have a feeling we'll be on our own tonight, or at least for a good part of it. Let me stop by my place long enough to put away my school bag and then we can go on patrol."_

"_Shall I join you now?"_

Homura didn't have to even think about that one. "_No offense, but I'm enjoying being by myself for a while longer. I appreciate that you stayed away during the press conference and dinner. I'd like just a little more time. It won't take long for me to get to the apartment. I'll be there by the time it's dark."_

Kyubey didn't answer in words, but Homura could somehow feel the alien's bemusement, if you could use that term for a creature devoid of recognizable emotion, at the quirkiness of the human girls he existed around.

The sense was short lived, and once again she could tell she was alone, both physically and with her thoughts…thoughts that very soon took a decidedly unexpected direction.

_That drawing…_

Homura was walking along a path near the river that cut through Mitakihara City on its way to the sea at the bustling harbor of the ultra-modern metropolis. There were many people out walking on the pleasant sunny evening, and Homura enjoyed losing herself in the idyllic normalcy of the scene. It was in this state of mind that she found herself watching a little child scratching pictures in the sand in the long park along the river bank.

_I know that child…_

Her mind filled briefly with images of this child from other timelines. Homura had generally shied away from Madoka's family, but occasionally she had found herself unable to avoid an invite to dinner or other such social interactions. Madoka's affection for her brother had always been absolute. Homura momentarily lost herself to a memory of the child's body, bloody and broken, and a rage-filled Madoka who hadn't needed any prodding on her expedited path to becoming Gretchen. It had been that timeline that had impressed upon Homura the overarching importance of protecting Madoka's family at any and all cost.

This child, however, was healthy, whole, and currently was drawing a picture Homura's magic-enhanced vision indicated was Madoka after her wish and before her final descent into the world-destroying Gretchen, a descent that ultimately ended when Madoka, resplendent and transcendent, had destroyed her own witch and therefore created the paradox that removed her from all worlds and everyone's knowledge. Everyone except Homura, and it seemed this one little boy.

Homura found herself smiling. _So I'm not losing my mind_. For some reason, the idea that someone else remembered Madoka, even if just a little bit, reassured her. The thin strip of red cloth which now adorned her hair, despite her impotent desire to burn it at times given how central it was to her other self's identity, had been tenuous proof of her own sanity in the face of Kyubey, Mami, and Kyouko's belief that she had simply cracked under the wish-fed pressure when they lost Sayaka.

Homura was surprised when her other self made no attempt to regain prominence at the appearance of someone who shared her apparent connection to Madoka. Then again, she mused, that Homura never interacted with children at all in her life. It was true. Unlike in this current time, her other self had been sickly to the point of being mostly bed-bound since pre-pubescence. Lacking siblings and the ability to perform that feminine right-of-passage called babysitting, isolated by her mother, the time traveler had never experienced more than the briefest interactions with kids significantly younger than herself.

_I, on the other hand, have babysat and spent family events and even vacations with younger cousins. Ever one to calculate things to twenty decimal places, it must make sense for you to leave me alone to this. _She had to chuckle to herself_. At least I'm useful for dealing with kids._

Feeling secure in herself, Homura began forward again to see what the child would have to say about his creation. She walked around the short wooden barrier, a wall meant more to keep sand where it belonged than to restrict the movement of people, and came to stand next to the kneeling boy. She crouched down, setting her school bag on the ground beside her, and inspected the drawing up close as the boy turned to regard her.

"Madoka! Madoka!" the boy cried out emphatically.

Homura was impressed. Not only was the child calling out the name, but it was written clearly in hiragana alongside the picture of the frilly magical girl. "Yeah. It looks just like her." Despite the palpable guilt she felt from her other self over past failures, Homura couldn't help but soften her smile even more as she beheld the remarkable child.

She watched as the boy, fascinated with the ribbon in her hair, reached up to touch it but was intercepted by his rapidly moving father.

"No Tatsuya, that's not nice," the kind-looking man chided as he picked up his son. "You don't pull a girl's hair, okay?"

The woman Homura clearly remembered was Madoka's mother came up behind her husband.

"Madoka, Madoka!" Tatsuya exclaimed with enthusiasm, wiggling gleefully in his father's arms.

"I'm sorry," the mother said uncertainly at Homura, reaching her hand out in concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Homura responded graciously. "Excuse me for intruding." She stood back up and smiled reassuringly at the woman. Homura then turned with a wider smile to the young one who was singlehandedly reaffirming her own sometimes shaky faith in her world. "Madoka. Right?"

The little boy seemed surprised at Homura's clear affirmation, as if he too had been craving someone to assure him this image inspiring him was real. "Yeah!" he agreed with a child's certainty.

Homura noted the mother looking thoughtfully at her son. "You have a remarkable son, ma'am. He's quite the artist." Homura glanced down at the image on the ground between them.

The father looked at the two women and seemed to sense they could use a little time to chat. "I'm going to take Tatsuya and play a bit so you two can talk. We'll just be over there." The man indicated a direction with his head and then placed the boy down and started walking hand-in-hand with his son.

The mother smiled warmly as she fondly watched her son and husband make their way together a ways before she turned to regard Homura again. "I'm sorry again if Tatsuya was any trouble. He means well."

"Oh, I know," Homura assured the woman. "If anything I should be the one apologizing. I'm sure it must be considered rude to walk up and start chatting with other people's small children without first introducing myself to the parents. I hope you can forgive this only child for forgetting that sometimes." Homura smiled demurely.

"Oh, you have nothing to apologize for. And I must admit you have a way with children for someone who has no siblings. Tatsuya rarely responds so well to strangers. You have a gift, um…"

"Akemi. Akemi Homura," she supplied, bowing perhaps more than would be normal to a complete stranger met in the park, but this woman was so much more to her. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Kaname Junko. Would you like to go sit and watch the river with me for a few minutes, while my husband tires Tatsuya so he sleeps well tonight?" Junko winked at this admission of age-old parental techniques.

"I'd like that," Homura said with a smile, truly enjoying the simple interaction, and with it the sense of being unambiguously in control of herself. _Call me foolish and naïve, and likely it'd be justified, but I still think you gave up too soon on trying to work with people._ _Hundreds of Homura's across timelines you obliterated each time you reappeared in that hospital bed in your single-minded zeal to protect Madoka. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the key you needed might have been in the personalities of those poor selves who never knew what hit them?_

Homura could tell that thought hit home, and she felt the other presence withdraw further into herself; withdraw into their shared soul to an extent where the indigenous Homura couldn't even sense her guilt over failing anymore.

"Does this spot look good?" Junko asked, gesturing at the grass at the crest of the hill before it descended to the river bank itself and the path that paralleled it.

"Fine with me," Homura indicated as she dropped her bag to the ground and sat between the bag and Junko.

For a few moments, the two just quietly took in the golden sunlight on the water before them. It truly was an amazing view.

"So, you go to school here?" Junko asked by way of restarting conversation.

"Yes," Homura nodded. "I'm in my second year at Mitakihara Middle School."

"Is that so," Junko said, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Do you happen to know Saotome Kazuko?"

Only then did Homura remember that Madoka's mother and her homeroom teacher were close friends. It hadn't generally been considered an important piece of information during all the timeline iterations, and so had never come to her mind before in this one.

"She's my homeroom teacher," Homura admitted. "You know her?"

"Just about my whole life. We went to school together and are still best friends." Junko smiled wistfully. "I don't see her nearly as much as I should, though. I tend to drop off her radar when she's in a new relationship and it's been quite a few months so I guess it's a good sign. Have you heard how that's going? I hear she tends to talk more than she should about her personal life in class." This last was said with a smirk at Homura's growing smile.

"I understand it fell apart several weeks back over a disagreement about her cooking."

Junko shook her head. "Is that so? It's a shame. She's really a sweet girl and deserves better than she ever gets. I guess I should check in with her to make sure she's okay."

It occurred to Homura as her face took on a more neutral expression that there were several reasons that might be a good idea, some of which she wasn't sure how to mention. "I think she'd really appreciate it, Kaname-san. She's had a rough two weeks, more than just the breakup."

"You mean the missing girl?" Junko asked, her own smile fading.

Homura just nodded.

"I don't usually read the local papers or watch TV, so I wasn't sure what the girl's age or class was. Was she in yours?"

Homura nodded again.

"In that case, I'll check in on her tonight after Tatsuya is put to bed. It might be a good night to go out for a drink."

"She'll probably like that," Homura replied noncommittally.

Junko nodded thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging and turning back to Homura. "So, what drew you to start up a conversation with my son?"

"His drawing," Homura answered honestly.

"Yeah, he's been drawing that frilly girl everywhere he can for the past two weeks. He never used to draw girls like that before." It was clear the mother was perplexed over the recent change in her son's behavior.

"As I said, I'm an only child, but I know kids can have amazing imaginations. Maybe it's his make-believe friend."

"So that's it. Some kind of imaginary friend my son sees when he plays alone? I guess that's not unusual for small children." Junko seemed to find the explanation satisfying.

"Yes. I used to do that, too."

"So who is Madoka?" Junko continued. "Do you know her? Is she some kind of anime character or something?"

"Maybe so. It feels like a name I've both have and haven't heard." As she had with the police, Homura tried to stick as close to the truth as possible even when obfuscating.

"I see. Yeah, maybe I've seen her somewhere with Tatsuya, too." Junko stretched as she became lost in a thought. "Sometimes, it seems to have such a nostalgic ring to it." She looked off wistfully into the sky. "Madoka…"

Homura smiled and looked toward the golden river, enjoying the mesmerizing shimmering on the water. "I see…"

Junko turned and looked closely at Homura's hair, clearly noticing something she hadn't really considered before. "That is such a cute ribbon! And exactly the sort of thing I would like- almost shockingly so!"

"Allow me to give it to you," Homura offered, not surprised in the slightest when the presence in the back of her mind made herself felt again in the form of mindless panic. _If anyone has a right to it, Homura, it's her. This is the woman who bought it after all._ The thought only slightly mollified the obsessed presence.

Junko laughed and waved her hand to dismiss the offer. "It wouldn't suit an old lady like me. Well if I had a daughter, maybe I would've made her wear it…"

Homura looked back at the water, sharing the relief her other self was feeling. She got no sense the presence was going to slip off and sulk again, nor did she think she'd ever be able to act cavalierly with the ribbon again. Still she didn't regret having made the offer.

Homura sensed movement to her left and she turned to see Junko stretching again. "I should probably get the boys home so we can get Tatsuya to bed on time, especially if I'm going to go out with Kazuko-chan." With that, the two women got up. Junko looked thoughtfully at Homura before continuing. "This may sound strange, but speaking with you has made me regret for the first time that I never had a daughter."

Homura smiled shyly. "I'm sure if you had one she'd be an amazing girl."

Junko chuckled at that. "If she were anything like me, it'd be truly scary. I doubt the world would survive." Junko paused, thinking a moment. "On the other hand, maybe there's the next best thing. Tatsuya really took to you right away. If you and your parents are ever interested in joining us for dinner sometime, you'd be quite welcome. My husband is a remarkable cook." Junko finished that with a possessive smile as she glanced back at the man in question.

Despite vague reservations from a girl reluctant to make attachments, Homura didn't dismiss the offer outright. "My father isn't in my life anymore and my mother lives in Tokyo, but perhaps when she's visiting we might do that. She's an executive engineer for an oil company. I have a feeling you'd probably like each other. And I'd love to spend more time with your son." Homura smiled more broadly as she finished her thought. "He can tell me more about Madoka."

"Wonderful!" Junko said, clapping her hands together. "I don't have a card with me, but I'll let Kazuko-chan know to pass any messages from you to me. Maybe she'll join us too."

Homura smiled at the thought, despite how alien it felt to one part of her. "That would certainly be nice. It would give my mom a chance to meet my teacher." With that, Homura picked up her bag and turned to say her goodbye.

"Thank you again for sharing a few minutes after school with this old lady," Junko said self-deprecatingly, although with a grin that belied the words.

"I enjoyed it too, Kaname-san. I'm glad I got to know you and your son, and I look forward to spending more time with you when my mom is around for a weekend. I'll be sure to remember to follow up." With this, Homura bowed again, noting Junko responded in kind this time.

"Take care of yourself, Akemi-san. If you ever need anything, let me know. I'm sure your mom tries to look out for you, but this is a big city to be living alone in."

_You don't know the half of it_, Homura thought with a smile. She waved and nodded, and turned leave the family to their journey.

**/*/**

Once she had made her way out of easy human sight of the family she had just enjoyed the evening with, Homura turned back around and marveled at the ease in which they interacted.

_I wonder if that would have been my family if Dad hadn't died?_

Strangely, the thought didn't bring with it the familiar pain that normally came with pondering the father she had never known. She had spent her life with guilt and regret over what role her existance might have played in his death and over the experiences she'd never have with the man. Now it all seemed so far away.

_I barely have time now for Mom, I suspect having a father would make life that much more complicated. That assumes I'd even be a puella magi if Dad were around. That kind of change could really have made a difference when it came to my ability to wish…my attractiveness to Kyubey. And if I hadn't wished when I did, where would I be now?_

There was no doubt in her heart where she'd be. Homura knew full well. She'd have been obliterated by the arrival of her other self, the wish-powered force of nature carrying over 60 years of intensity of purpose and, in the end, despair. Road kill number 782 on the universe-spanning Akemi Homura's path to salvation, destruction, or oblivion. Which it would be, who knew? The jury was still out.

_Still, I can't help but be proud of her…of me. What she did to make Madoka what she became is nothing short of amazing. I can't begrudge myself the damage she sustained in the process. I can't believe Madoka would have dumped her on me if there wasn't a purpose behind it. I have to believe that Homura, whatever I am at the end, will be better for what we both bring to the table._

Homura shook her head to clear it of the deep thoughts_. It's nearing sunset and I have a long night ahead of me. I can already tell the miasma is thick, especially for a pretty summer day. It'll just be me and Kyubey, so I should get ready._

Homura watched as the Kaname family made their way leisurely along the path in the logical direction of their house. As she did so, she sensed an intense desire to protect directed at the strolling, seemingly carefree trio. She had no doubt what part of her would be so focused on protecting someone named Kaname.

_I think I have enough time to make sure they'll be safe. I can't be there for them all the time no matter what you'd like, but right now it's not terribly inconvenient to make my way back to the apartment by way of their place. It's such a lovely evening, I may as well enjoy it a little longer._

As Homura made her way along the river a ways in advance of the family that had, in another time and place, brought Madoka into the world, she found herself musing over her feelings after the remarkable experience of meeting Kaname Madoka's family in her timeline.

_They're an amazing trio. Junko reminds me a lot of Mom. I've already noted how I can't imagine a cooler dad than Junko's husband. And Tatsuya…_

As she considered the boy, she felt the tell-tale signs of interest from the presence now always lurking in the back of her mind, skirting the edges of her consciousness. A presence which had become very real for her since her visit to the clinic and her latest therapy- her first since becoming a magical girl. More than interest, she could sense a growing sense of protectiveness.

_So you're interested in him too, I see. I'm not exactly surprised. You've been denied one Kaname offspring to protect so you're going to take on the other._

Homura could sense indignance at the comment.

_Hey! I'm not exactly arguing. We're on the same page with this one. He's a remarkable kid and I don't want to see him hurt either. I'm fine keeping an eye on him. Just don't go all psycho-neurotic about it this time, okay? That's one part of you I'm really not interested in becoming._

Annoyance this time.

Perhaps due to herself resonating with the sentiment she was feeling, not for the first time Homura herself felt a measure of the same emotion, annoyance, at the fact she could almost never sense words from her other self, despite the fact it was now clear that the other presence was well aware of what she was thinking whether it was directed at her or not. She wanted to believe this was simply an unavoidable artifact of sharing the same mind and soul…their essential existence, but she couldn't exclude the possibility that the veteran personality was doing it purposefully. There wasn't anything to do about it, though, so once again she decided not to worry about it.

_Since when did I grow so fatalistic?_

As she walked, Homura focused much more energy than usual monitoring for the tell-tale signature of wraiths along the way. She felt she had time, she knew she had the magic to spare, and the walk was therapeutic not to mention productive as she watched the miasma currents and eddies for indications where the energies would be flowing that night. It was about two-thirds of the way along the journey that she felt it.

A hibernation grid.

_I've been told these exist, but this is the first one I've actually encountered._

Homura stopped walking as she used her magic to reach out and examine the signature further. Indeed, it was a wraith grid…a very easy to miss one. A well concealed, low energy type used by wraiths to hide out during bright, summer days like today when their own energies were at nadir and they were at their most vulnerable. It was to find just this kind of grid that she'd been so detailed in her search as she went. Finding such grids when all the ambient human energy was at its peak was like happening upon the proverbial needle in a haystack. And once found, the reward was meager at best due to the extremely low energy state of the contents at that moment.

Mami had told her there were magical girls who managed to eke out a subsistence existence by targeting such hibernation grids during the day and then hiding out at night in an ironic tribute to their prey's daytime habit...and while hiding completely ignoring the risk the humans in the area were subjected to by unchecked wraith activity. Although the immediate risk of such a hunting style was minimal since destroying wraiths in a hibernation grid was in essence shooting fish in a barrel, the overall risk was great. Unless the magical girl was very lucky, or very skilled, or perhaps some of both, the amount of magic it took to just find concealed grids was generally greater than the resulting reward would renew those energies. If said girl wasn't extremely careful, she'd find herself with a darkened soul gem, starved for magic, with nothing left to find another hibernation grid and defenseless against fully empowered wraiths.

_Well, with all the nighttime wraiths we're destroying these days as a team, and all the resulting rewards, I don't think I have to worry too much about that scenario. Time to clean this one out before it wakes up and eats someone…like the Kaname family._

Before she could act at all, however, Homura became aware of intense curiosity, almost desire, on the part of the presence that shared her mind and soul. ["_Wait!"_]

_{"What?"}_ Homura responded, both surprised as the first actual word coming from the time traveler as well as irritated because she knew in the developing twilight that the wraith or wraiths within the grid would be awakening very soon. As the shadows grew, so would their power, and hence the effort it would take to destroy them.

_["Akemi-san, I want to examine it."]_

Homura surprise turned to shock, and it took her a moment to formulate a coherent response. {"_My, my, the ice princess has deigned to address her subjects, or I suppose in this case singular subject, from atop her ivory tower."}_

Homura could sense the scowl the other girl would be wearing at the moment were she to have a physical body to manifest it. ["_You have no idea what you're saying, but never mind that for now._ _However you choose to characterize it, Akemi-san, while I've been sitting here essentially confined to my soul gem I've had a lot of time to think. I've been wanting to try some things out while I'm alone and have a manageable grid to work with. I don't see another chance like this happening again any time soon. Your living arrangements don't provide a lot of solitude. I doubt both Tomoe-san or Sakura-san will be gone at the same time like this very often, and even less likely that you will have managed to make Kyubey scarce at that same time."]_

_{"While I can't argue with you about that, I'm left to wonder what 'trying some things out' means for you. Is this along the lines of your work with grief seeds and your fashioning your own maze in your apartment in the latter timelines?"}_

_["Yes,"]_ the presence responded. ["_I want to try and begin understanding the geometry of grids like I was just beginning to understand mazes."]_

_{"And you don't want me to just ask Kyubey?"}_

_["Do you really think that would be wise?"]_

Homura thought about it a bit, working to separate the wariness of her more jaded self from her own personal feelings on the matter. {"_I can't say why, but I'm reluctant too now that I think about it. It's the same way I feel about talking to Kyubey about Madoka's last wish. It makes me uneasy."}_

_["The relationship between magical girls and Incubators in this timeline seems much less…strained…but it's clear Kyubey is maintaining his secrets and I think you should do the same for the moment."]_

Homura couldn't argue._ {"Okay, back to the pressing subject. We currently have an essentially tame grid and we're on our own…but not for much longer. It's almost dark. The wraiths inside that grid are going to awaken before too much longer and Kyubey will come looking for me probably before that. What are you suggesting?"}_

_["I can slow Kyubey down. If we get started right away we should have enough time for a reasonable amount of experimentation…but only if we move quickly."]_

Homura felt her stomach flip-flop as she followed where this was going. {"_You want control. That's what you really mean by working quickly, isn't it Homura?"}_

Silence.

Homura continued the thought, the exercise not making her like the idea any better._ {"There's not enough time to guide me through the magic, the techniques, and the math you want to use."}_

_["You obviously know this already since that wasn't a question. It's the only way we'll get anything done in the available time. Admit it, you're curious too."]_

Homura unconsciously fidgeted at the hem of her school uniform where blouse met skirt as she considered the unfolding conversation._ {"Yes, I am. I am you, or you're me, after all. Still, I also don't exactly trust you. I've told you I'm not like the other 781 Homura's you bulldozed while protecting Madoka. I'm secure in my sense of self and I made my own wish. This is my universe, Homura, and you just happen to have come to squat in it."}_

_["If that's the case, then even if I were to resist yielding control back to you, you should be able to take it back anyway, yes? As you say, this is your universe and this soul gem we share is the result of your wish and not mine. And that assumes I don't simply yield control back to you when I'm done experimenting. You yourself have acknowledged we're one and the same. The only question is how we will integrate together as one personality when all is said and done. Yielding control this evening isn't going to change those dynamics. I don't have anything to gain, and I have much to lose, by being greedy now since it would just make your personality more stubborn and less open to simply adapting to mine."]_

The indigenous Homura wanted to be angry at the arrogance of her more experienced self, to be indignant at her calculating nature and the cold manner in which she described the future of one Akemi Homura, but she couldn't. _She's right_, Homura thought to herself.

_["Of course I am_,"] the other presence responded.

_{"I wasn't asking you, you know_,"} Homura thought back in irritation. This time there was no response as the other personality had already made her point. {"_You're right that feeling threatened by myself really does make me sound schizophrenic on two different levels."} _

Memories were not experience, and Homura knew she was no more ready to do what her other self had in mind than a school girl trying something new with only a book and a helpful mentor over her shoulder. She'd be slow and make mistakes, neither of which they had the luxury for at the moment. _{"You're right, but that doesn't make me like it any better."}_

When no response was forthcoming, Homura moved into a concealed spot, sat down, and stuck out her hand to materialize her soul gem in its egg-like base form. {"_Okay, let's do this before I have second thoughts. Remember I'm loaning you the keys, not giving them to you. I want them back, and please don't ding the car too much while you're driving it. I also expect a full tank of gas by the time we're through."}_

Homura could actually hear a muted chuckle at the metaphor. "Made you laugh", Homura said aloud with a slight smile, hoping the words and smile weren't the last actions she'd ever make with her own body. Clinging to her faith in herself even if she had weeks ago lost trust, she drew her awareness to herself and fled with it into her soul gem.

* * *

*****Author's Note*****

It is clear from the reviews and PMs that my Homura is both the most endearing and most unnerving thing about my story. This is exactly what I would expect, and it means so far I'm doing it right. The most original element of my story, the whole reason why I am writing it and feel I can contribute substantively in light of 'To the Stars' which is so incredibly good as to leave very little oxygen remaining for those of us also interested in seriously taking on the 'Madokaverse', is my take on the 'Madokaverse' Homura.

Without giving too much away, there are two elements of canon that are driving me. First is Homura's anguished cry as she is 'kicked back into play' after Madoka tries to be reassuring. Second is the reasonable conclusion that, unlike the previous timelines, the new universe Homura may well have already made her wish, a wish obviously having nothing to do with Madoka since she doesn't exist, BEFORE the time traveler colony drops on her. That was never before the case.

Some people are comfortable having the time traveler 'overwrite' the indigenous Homura like apparently happened previously each time in the hospital bed, which is fine and makes for some great stories here on FFN. I'm going in a different direction since as I see it we now have a wish-empowered girl who clearly seems a bit more confident in herself than 'moemura' given she was fighting, apparently quite effectively as part of Team Mitakihara, before the ribbon plops in her hand. I am having fun examining this girl and how she adjusts to becoming someone else...yet herself...not to mention eventually vice versa as 'homando' finds that in the end she didn't/doesn't have all the answers either. I'm already touching on that here. We'll eventually loop back to Madoka by the end as these two girls, Madoka and Homura, are inextricably liked in my mind. A whole lot will happen between then and now, though.


	5. Interregnum

**Interregnum  
**_A flashback_

_(moments before Sagitta Luminis,  
__Cosmos ante Madoka)_

**Pain!**

Homura groaned as she dazedly recovered her wits lost from having been slammed to the ground by the terrible force of the flying wreckage of a building. A building flung with the fury of the most powerful of witches. Despite her magic, the time traveling magical girl suspected she had briefly lost consciousness, and even without the pain she knew she was in sad shape if the stickiness of her blood-stained eyelids was any indication. As she roused herself she realized the worst of her pain emanated from her right foot, a foot now crushed under a block of concrete. She lacked the strength now to dislodge it. Reducing her pain threshold moderated the pain in her leg somewhat, but the action only magnified the pain in her heart…her soul.

_Why? _

She looked up through her agony at Walpurgisnacht, the amalgam witch continuing its relentless path toward the concentration of lives in the deceptive safety of the shelter. Homura's despair at yet another failure competed with her rising hatred toward her seemingly unbeatable nemesis.

_Why? No matter how many times I try…why can't I win?_

She knew she was out of options in this timeline. Her magic drained, her body wrecked, and her plans and arsenal exhausted, Homura reached for her buckler to reset the timeline…for the 782nd time. Before she could engage the process, she paused.

_If I go back again, I'll only make Madoka's destiny worse. Then in the end…everything I've done…_

Homura fell back and wept at the realization that there really was no way out. Kyubey was right, she was trapped. Her best friend was trapped. Madoka's fate, and her own, had been sealed the moment Homura had made her wish to protect her savior- the only one to ever embrace the worthless little girl she had been before the madness had started.

The torturous memory flooded her again; that moment decades and hundreds of lives ago when everything had fallen apart. She could feel the pistol grip in her hand. The heft as she held it before her, her hold shaking as she pointed the gun through tears at her best friend…her only friend…her reason for living. Her protector, her savior, her…everything. Homura knew now that it wasn't the first time she'd killed the girl. She had murdered her friend the moment she uttered her wish…over and over and over again. Universes of Madoka's impaled on the spear of Homura's utter, cruel foolishness.

_How could I have been so naïve, so arrogant, to believe that somehow I would be able to avoid the end that awaits all magical girls? Just days ago at the rail yard after Sayaka was lost to Octavia I told Madoka and Kyouko there was no way out, but I clung to my belief that somehow I was different…special. I can change time- I should be able to do anything. But I can't…no one can The universe always comes back to baseline- regression to the mean It's how the world works; something that can't be changed by one foolish girl child. I was so stupid, and Kyubey knew it. He USED me...again. Damn him._

_No, damn me._

Homura could feel the familiar sensation of her soul gem blackening, but now it was no longer an experiment. The stakes were real now…nothing less than her immortal soul. Yet for all she knew exactly what was happening, it didn't matter anymore. Most of her mind now was reliving the murder like her trademark timeline re-entrant loop. Like a horrifying GIF file continuously demonstrating her inhumanity, her failure in Dolby surround. She was growing numb, her despair and rising hatred for Walpurgisnacht, the Incubators, and most of all herself rapidly pushing aside all other thoughts and feelings…save one. One glimmer of hope…of light…that just would. Not. Go. Away.

_I love her. More than anything else, I love her. Can I abandon her to Walpurgisnact?_

Even as Homura's heart continued to fall to the despair that was consuming it and her manifest soul, her keenly trained mind scrambled for a way out.

_Kirika. She maintained her sense of duty to Oriko even as a grief seed. Kirika is the one who first gave me the idea that the boundary between magical girl and witch, soul gem and grief seed, is a transition and not a hard line. Because of Kirika I've fashioned my own maze, walked through the space between witch and magical girl, sanity and madness. Is it too much a stretch to think my own sense of duty to Madoka might not cross over with me like Kirika's obsession for Oriko?_

Homura knew she had moments of humanity left. She didn't need to see her soul gem to know only a sliver of brightness remained. Knowing it was her only hope to protect Madoka, she gave into her hatred for Walpurgisnacht, focusing the totality of her fury on the cruel creature and praying that somehow the witch she would become could achieve the end Homura never could, a surviving human Madoka, and in the process meet her own end leaving this universe free of both the amalgam witch and the devastating creature Homura knew she must certainly become given her breadth of experience and the depth of her hate and self-loathing.

Just as she gave herself up completely to the darkness, yielded to the madness she knew would rise from within her soul to embrace her, Homura sensed hands take her own. She opened her eyes weakly to see Madoka standing reassuringly before her, smiling gently.

"That's enough. You've done more than enough, Homura-chan," the pink-haired visage before her spoke.

"Madoka…" the broken and bleeding girl managed to croak out.

Homura lost herself in Madoka's eyes, her friend's gentle presence resonating with the glimmer remaining in the raven-haired girl's soul, a glimmer Homura now realized was rooted in her pertinacious hope. Her despair remained, but in those gentle orbs she couldn't maintain her grasp on the hatred and she felt it slip through her mental fingers. _No! _She fought the loss of her hatred desperately_. Without the hate, I won't stay focused on destroying Walpurgisnacht when I lose myself. My friend will be my first victim. Madoka, what are you doing here!_

Madoka, blithely unaware of the desperation filling her friend, stood and turned to face Walpurgisnacht with grim determination.

Homura looked down from the now standing pink-haired girl to recognise Kuybey was now alongside her friend. Her surprise lasted but a moment, replaced by realization dawning. _Madoka, no!_

"Madoka…you didn't!"

Madoka turned back at the forlorn voice to look down at Homura reassuringly. "Homura-chan, I'm sorry. I'm going to become a magical girl."

"Madoka…no…"

"I finally figured it out," Madoka explained with apparent absolute certainty. "I found a wish I truly wanted granted. So I'm going to use my life for it, okay?"

Homura was frantic by now, her hatred long forgotten and now replaced by fear which magnified her despair. That still keen sliver of her mind realized her soul gem should have cracked already under the weight of her darkness, but strangely it hadn't yet broken. Scientific curiosity was buried in the avalanche of anguish now consuming her. "Don't! Because then…because then, what have I…been fighting for?"

Homura could hold it within herself no longer and desperation turned again to weeping. Madoka knelt down beside the broken girl and hugged her friend tightly in comfort.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," the inexplicably confident girl cooed in reassurance. "But I believe it's because you've protected me for so, so long that I am the person I am now. I really am sorry."

Homura reached up with her left hand to grasp Madoka's arm before the latter sat up to kneel, still hold Homura with her left arm and holding Homura left hand with her right one.

"Won't you believe in the answer that the one you've protected for all this time had found?" Madoka challenged softly. "I swear I won't waste everything you've done for me, Homura-chan."

Homura looked up uncertainly, unsure what to say, her mind now blank as she impotently absorbed the event taking place before her. "Madoka…"

Madoka stood up and turned her attention fully to Kuybey.

"_Since you're now the central point of karmic destiny from numerous different timelines, no matter how enormous the wish, you will likely be able to make it come true."_

"It's true, right?"

"_Now, Kaname Madoka, what is the wish that you will pay for with your soul?"_

Madoka expression remained absolutely determined, not an iota of doubt in her eyes or demeanor. "I wish…" She paused and stood to fully face Kuybey, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I wish to erase all witches before they are born, all the witches in all the universes, both past and future, with my own hands!"

Kuybey looked stunned, a mirror for Homura's own feelings. Madoka's soul began to shine through her body with the brightness Homura had seen growing with each timeline iteration.

"That wish…if a wish like that were granted, it could unravel the fabric of time itself! It would go against the very force of karmic destiny! Do you truly intend to become a god?"

Madoka brightness kept intensifying, exceeding anything Homura had seen before from her friend at this moment.

"I don't care what I become. All those who have fought against witches, who believed in hope as magical girls, I don't want to see them cry. I want them to be smiling to the very end. If any rule or law stands in the way of that, I will destroy it, rewrite it. That is my prayer…that is my wish. Now! Grant my wish, Incubator!"

Madoka's light expanded to blind Homura, even with her hands blocking the unparalleled brilliance. When she could see again, Madoka stood before her as a magical girl, looking much as she had every other time she had contracted. But her stance, her determination, was different this time. Homura had never seen her so confident, not even the first time when Mami and Madoka had rescued the still human Homura from the first witch she had experienced. Also, Madoka continued to glow from within herself. Different too was her bow. Her bow now was…otherworldly.

Madoka said nothing as she turned her attention to the sky. Homura watched as Madoka strung her bow with light and fired it upwards, instantly dispelling Walpurgisnacht's darkness from the city, leaving debris floating aimlessly in midair as if uncertain what would be happening next. The effects of Madoka's wish spread through the sky, a seemingly infinite stream of arrows across the heavens going elsewhere, and likely only to Homura's time-enhanced perception, elsewhen.

Time seemed to stand still in a moment that lasted eternity. Homura knew far more was happening than even she could comprehend, but dismissed it all to cling determinedly to Madoka's spirit with her heart, refusing to lose Madoka or herself in the bewildering events. Homura watched as Madoka glided up into the air to face the disintegrating Walpurgisnacht.

"It's okay. It's alright now," the glowing girl assured with opening arms. "You don't have to hate anyone anymore. You don't have to curse anyone, anymore. I'll go back, before you turned into this, and take the burden of your pain."

Homura watched, her arm still shielding herself from the brightness as the brilliance once again intensified…and then surpassed what should have been possible. It was as if every photon which had ever existed was concentrated on this one place and time. Light enveloped the world, leaving nothing behind, searing away existence itself. Homura fought to maintain herself, using strength…magic…she never knew she had.

_Madoka, don't leave me!_

She felt her body melt away, ceding it to dissolve into yet another victim of the light, but her will refused to yield as her awareness shielded itself within her darkness and followed the one star in her universe that still guided her. Followed it wherever it would lead…

**/*/**

Journal Note- Thoughts on the Genesis of Madoka's Final Wish  
Dr Fiona Graham, Ph.D.

I could spend the rest of eternity examining the events of Sagitta Luminis, Madoka's Final Wish, and never understand how She came to craft it. I likely will keep trying, however, given that brief eternal moment is certainly the closest I will ever come to peace. I am wise enough to recognise hopeless obsession when I see it, even in myself, and I'm fine if forever reliving such profound beauty is my fate.

Contributing to my fixation is that I know so very little about how it came about. For a historian who is damned near omniscient insofar as the girls are concerned, to watch the most profound event in Puella Magi history from essentially the sidelines, and an obstructed seat at that, is vexing to say the least. Madoka's Final Wish came out of nowhere. There was no trace of it in any previous timeline in which I knew this child's mind, although I always knew Her heart was capable of the ultimate sacrifice. In a group that selects for the self-sacrificing, Mami-trained Madoka was always a model for Her peers. Still, the past provides precious little to go on.

In the last timeline, Homura was remarkably effective in preventing Madoka from contracting until the very end. When She did contract, from the moment She made that profound wish Her mind was already essentially beyond comprehension by such as I, so all I have to go on are fragments, images, and emotions. Nothing substantive, however much those bits and pieces have forever changed me.

This leaves Mami, Sayaka, Kyouko, and Homura as my windows into Madoka at the end. That She was selfless and wanted to be someone who could make a difference was clear from Mami, and a trait that was consistent in Madoka across timelines. Her endless capacity to love, Her respect for others, and Her willingness to risk Herself for others was clear from Sayaka and Kyouko. Again, classic Madoka.

Not surprising given their tightly bound fate, I believe the key lies with Homura. For all that Kyubey has done to me in this timeline, his verbal torment of Homura in the last one, when after hundreds of timelines we finally discovered why Madoka's potential kept rising after every iteration, was heartrending. With scalpel-like precision, Kyubey cut Homura from every construct she used to maintain her sanity. It shook Homura beyond the core of her being as she realized what she'd been unconsciously fearing for years worth of existence already…that she was in a trap with no exit.

A lesser magical girl would have despaired into a witch on the spot. Homura continued to cling to hope, however, fixing her soul on the one star she had left to guide her- protecting Madoka- despite her knowledge now that even in protecting her she was simply twisting the knife further into the girl's fate. She HAD to succeed now, right now; there was no longer any other option. Homura could no longer bend at all or all was lost, and like any structure with absolutely no tolerance to flex, she immediately began cracking when subjected to stress.

I would suggest an accurate lens through which to view the latter Homura, most certainly the one which crossed universes during Sagitta Luminis, is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. How could anyone NOT suffer PTSD after mercy killing by her own hand her best friend and her reason for living? After the trail of blood she left behind her? Simply look at her dreams now in this timeline as she receives her farcical treatments or her reaction in the last one to her final failure to protect Madoka- classic diagnostic re-experiencing behavior in a recursive time-traveler who has rewritten the book on re-experiencing. Constrained horizons, anhedonia, avoidance behaviors related to forming relationships, impaired social interactions going on for years from her perspective- it's all there. Save for the protective properties of her wish driving her to fulfill her commitment to Madoka, properties which since her failure to protect are now driving her over the edge into personality dissociation, this child has been buried under the weight of the DSM V diagnostic criteria. Homura is a wounded warrior, and Kyubey knew damned well what he was doing when he pushed her past the breaking point.

Don't ever play a game of chess or poker with Kyubey if you can help it. For different reasons chances are that, like Homura, you'll lose.

Unless, of course, you have the power to change the rules of the game. I must believe the event that changed Everything, the sunshine and water from which the Final Wish sprang forth from the fertile ground that was Madoka's heart and mind, was the arrival of Madoka at Homura's door. Homura tried valiantly to keep her feelings inside, and had she successfully done so I am certain events would have played out very differently, likely along Kuybey's intended plan. But the weight of her burden now was too great and Homura shared her true feelings…everything…with Madoka. It had been a hundred timelines since Homura had been so forthright before Walpurgisnacht, and despite Madoka's dazed 'deer in headlights' look even as the two parted, I must believe it was the catalyst for Madoka's decision. I'll likely never know for sure.

~F

* * *

*****Author's Note*****

_Interregnum_ refers to a period between rulers or governments. In ancient times such periods could stretch on for years, and it was generally a time of chaos, despair, and often death. In modern times and industrialized countries the idea of a long period between formal leadership is a pretty antiquated concept, unless you're Belgium of course. :p

This 'insertion chapter' is dedicated to veterans, most especially those of my sisters and brothers in service to any nation who have stared mortality in the eye and live haunted by the acquaintance. I'm a psychiatric provider. I have on occasion professionally served real wounded warriors. Proud men and women who, in the service of their nation, have pushed themselves beyond human endurance and come out broken. They are true heroes in my book, and I honor every one of them. My treatment of Homura, while simplistic for the purposes of storytelling, is based in some measure on real-world experience, and is intended as an homage to one of the best damned characters ever to grace the screen of any medium, any genre, any country, anywhere.

This chapter was also written with a mind on all my readers who have been wondering just what the Hell I am doing to our favorite kick-ass magical girl. I am grateful to my reviewers for helping me realize it was time that I just came out and said it. Hopefully this flashback while Homura is sorting out which parts of herself will be in charge of addressing the hibernation grid has served the intended purpose. Either way, I pray my glorious reviewers will keep on doing exactly what you all have been doing- making me a better author and making this story greater than it would otherwise be. You're awesome, every one of you. I hope you enjoy the next several chapters as we start to ramp things up and take it to the next level. It promises to be a wild ride. :-)

~Gwen

**Added note 12/17/2012**

I modified the last paragraph to make it read easier. I had been trying to emphasize Homura's prowess, but it made for a clunky read. I'm including it here for curiosity sake and archiving purposes- for those interested. The underlined piece was removed. It's still 'head canon' for me, but it just had to go.

_Unless, of course, you have the power to change the rules of the game. I must believe the event that changed Everything, the sunshine and water from which the Final Wish sprang forth from the fertile ground that was Madoka's heart and mind, was the arrival of Madoka at Homura's door_ _as the greatest tactical genius the mahou shoujo have ever produced was precisely mapping out the best mundane attack possible short of atomic weapons, which while she had considered the idea were not available to her without leaving Japan and in any case would have placed those in the evacuation shelter at risk. Homura tried valiantly to keep her feelings inside, and had she successfully done so I am certain events would have played out very differently, likely along Kuybey's intended plan. But the weight of her burden now was too great and Homura shared her true feelings…everything…with Madoka. It had been a hundred timelines since Homura had been so forthright before Walpurgisnacht, and despite Madoka's dazed 'deer in headlights' look even as the two parted, I must believe it was the catalyst for Madoka's decision. I'll likely never know for sure._


	6. Sciscitatio

**Telepathy Conventions:**

{_thought_} is internal thinking by the new universe Homura personality.  
{"_dialog_"} is internal dialog from new universe Homura to old universe Homura  
[_thought_] is internal thinking by the old universe Homura personality.  
["_dialog'_] is internal dialog from old universe Homura to new universe Homura

In addition, keep in mind the old universe Homura is in control of the body, so all actions and verbal statements are hers. Also, by convention the old universe Homura refers to the new universe one as Akemi-san, whereas the new universe Homura calls the old universe one Homura. It's a clue into a distinct difference in the personalities.

* * *

Margin Note

Long before my knowledge of witches merged with my knowledge of wraiths, I had been quite curious about both, as had my daughters. We existed as the modern Scientific Method was being developed and very quickly embraced "hypothesis, test, evaluate". In this timeline it was Audrey who coined the term 'grid' for the nests wraiths create for themselves when they collect together, a term which quickly spread throughout the infant puella magi community Moira had formed even if no one had a clue what the Hell my youngest was babbling about. The poor thing tried to explain her reasons for it, but it was only a century later when I pursued my astrophysics studies that I finally understood what she was doing to that poor cube! Alas, none of us save her were terribly adept at math at the time. Such is their lot that precious few girls had nearly the time we did to become so. Fighting wraiths and Moira's tragically ill-fated crusade to better the lot of the puella magi, and with them humanity as a whole, consumed most of our time until time failed us. Oh, the possibilities! If Audrey had been able to chat with Einstein, Hawking, and the other human Great Minds of the 20th Century perhaps then Homura might have more to build on now. I imagine that Homura and my youngest could have been great friends. Alas, like so much else that could have been had we not been such trusting fools, it was never to be.

~F

**Scīscitātiō**

___Saturday, May 21_  
(a little over three weeks after Sagitta Luminis,_  
__Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)_

_{What an odd feeling…}_

Moments prior Homura had performed what instinct, her training with Mami, and her other memories all told her was a last ditch action to be taken when no other option remained - retreating into the soul gem in order to avoid disorientation from massive damage, and then reflexively reaching out back out to regenerate the body (at massive cost in magic) and re-establish control. It truly was an action to be taken when all that was left was hope, given there was no certainty the body would be available again.

Homura's current circumstances were different. Her perfectly intact body had been unoccupied for perhaps a fraction of a second. She had returned to it almost as quickly as she had left…in a manner of speaking.

Instead of the sensory deprivation and lack of time sense that she, or more specifically her time traveler self, had been told by other magical girls came with separation from her human form, she was still experiencing all five senses. She was merely passive now, no longer able to affect the world around her.

Her body rose and stretched, ligaments and tendons extending and contracting luxuriously…almost cat-like. The alternating roughness and smoothness of her soul gem pressed its imprint into her clenched right hand. A sultry evening summer breeze coming off the river swept lazily past her face. The sensation of touch and movement was familiar, but being simply along for the ride was surreal. Homura marveled at the newfound awareness of her body, paradoxically achieved through giving it up. She already hungered to have it back.

{_So this is what it's been like to be her the past three weeks…}_

"If nothing else comes from this," Homura said aloud, though softly, as her muscles pleasured themselves, "I hope you get a sense of how frustrating it is to be just an observer in your own body."

_{Was she just intuiting what I'd be thinking, or is she even now aware of my private thoughts?}_ The implications of the latter disturbed her, however irrationally given it had been this way ever since the veteran had come to her universe.

The stretch complete, Homura opened her palm and considered her soul gem. She continued speaking, apparently oblivious to the younger personality's anxious thoughts. "Lesson number one, Akemi-san. The key to keeping Kyubey from interfering is to hide, much like those wraiths are doing. By using a little magic we can obfuscate our soul gem's signature into the ambient human emotions around us…like so." Although unable to interact with her magic or the world directly, the indigenous Homura felt her magical 'hands' - that part of herself which usually drew on her power - gently held and walked through an amazingly efficient and creative use of her energies.

_{She could have just done it, but she's taking the time to teach me how it's done. I wonder why?}_The behavior was perplexing, but she didn't have time to think too much about it lest she lose the opportunity to learn such a remarkable skill.

The clear, warm glow of her soul gem flared briefly and then its brightness muted, although the effect was very different from that of corruption infusing the object. "Now as long as we're judicious in the use of magic, Kyubey won't be able to find us unless he's close. Just like for us finding that hibernation grid. And speaking of the hibernation grid…"

Her attention redirected, Homura transformed her soul gem back into ring form. She made rapid, if mundane, progress to the hiding place of the wraiths she had first sensed only a few minutes prior. "There you are," she whispered while approaching a nondescript building.

She continued in a slightly louder, but still muted voice. "A small warehouse next to a residential district. Makes perfect sense. Big interior open space protected from the daylight, with lots of nearby humans enjoying the weekend and their emotions further cloaking the minimized signature. And Tomoe-san says they're non-sapient, maybe even non-sentient."

_{"Aren't they?"}_

Homura shrugged as her movement slowed, her attention split as she took in every detail of the structure. "I'm not sure," she continued somewhat absently. "What I've seen since coming here has been inconclusive. Ants and bees can form complex structures and societies, even to the extent of making war involving armies with a simple command structure, yet they're not considered sapient. For now, your guess is a good as mine."

The irony of the last statement wasn't lost on the passive presence._{"Ever the young scientist. You're surprisingly talkative now."}_

Homura's left cheek turned up in a lopsided smile, showing her amusement. "If by scientist you mean I ask questions and follow the data, then color me guilty as charged. It kept me alive, Akemi-san, even during the most bizarre timelines. Unlike most magical girls, even you – the me of this timeline, I wasn't born with the tools and skills to destroy witches. I had to find my own way from the very beginning; and against Walpurgisnacht no less. As for the rest, I think you will understand very quickly why I might find it enjoyable interacting with the world again."

_{"Oh."}_

"Anyway, we have work to do and you said you were also curious, Akemi-san. Watch, listen, think, and learn." With that, Homura walked to what appeared to be a side door of the warehouse, its steel surface brightly reflecting the waning orange sun behind her. "The grid boundary is fully inside. We need to get in there. Suggestions, younger me?"

_{"We could bust the door, but that would probably set off an alarm. It won't take much magic at all to unlock it, and we could spoof the sensors and avoid attention."}_

"Not bad," she said, considering her options. "On the other hand, I have to wonder just what an alarm will do this close to the grid. Remember what you learned about missing electronic signals and wraith grids from the police when they were questioning you."

_{"I don't know."}_

"Neither do I, so I think I'll go the cautious route for now." Reaching out her hand to grasp the sun-warmed, polished knob, she projected just enough magic to telekinetically unlock the door as well as seek out and hold in place the magnet which maintained the circuit of the alarm sensor that was, indeed, along the side of the door jam.

_{"Impressive. You're barely using any magic at all."}_

"It shouldn't surprise you. You've been plagued by my memories. I was breaking into Yakuza dens and JSDF facilities in my sleep by the end, and I wasn't always freezing time. It took less magic, and preserved my buckler, to just avoid detection. This is nothing."

Slipping into the building and closing the door behind her, Homura released her mental hold on the sensor now that the door was back in place. She then used a similarly minimal amount of magic to prevent her presence from becoming known to any infrared sensors inside the building. "Not that I'm sure the sensors are even working properly right now," she mused aloud.

_{"Because of the grid?"}_

"Yes."

Looking around her, Homura saw an unremarkable small office. Two wooden desks and several beige file cabinets filled much of the space. The walls were mostly adorned with business-related posters. A wood and glass case above one desk contained what looked to be two polished swords, a long and a short blade. Their worn hilts and the practical rather than ornate scabbards sharing the display case suggested their age. Across from her was a door she suspected led into the warehouse proper.

On the desks were sundry items, one of which caught her eye. She walked over to pick it up - a laptop computer - at the same time placing down her school book bag. "Now this may prove to be useful." Carrying the thin device under her left arm, she made her way to the door leading further into the building and opened it with her dominant right hand.

As expected, the door led into a large open space containing huge shelves upon which resided large crates. The floor was concrete and the aisles between the shelves were wide enough to allow small forklifts to operate. In fact her nostrils filled with the acrid scent of oil and gasoline doubtless from such equipment. The room was silent. That was, to any _human_ in the room.

To the eyesight of a magical girl, however, there was something else. One corner of the large room was…hazy for lack of a better term. The objects within seemed to shimmer as if in a punishing desert sun. The wall on the other side of the artifact seemed indistinct.

"So _there_ you are," Homura said as she threw back her long hair to take in the details of the room. "Akemi-san, I've never used your innate combat skills, and I lacked any of my own, so they're unfamiliar to me. Please be ready to guide me if things go bad and we need your level of firepower. There won't be enough time to switch back. Stay alert."

_{"I understand. Just don't slow your reflexes thinking you can stop time."}_

"Good point." Homura nodded and chuckled slightly. "Now it's time to play the harmless little human for a moment and check things out from this dimension." Fully prepared to transform at a moment's notice, defenses at the ready, the girl made her way cautiously to the grid boundary apparent only to her magical sight.

"It really is a perfect plane," she noted with interest, running one hand along the ethereal boundary when she came up to it. "It's indistinct and seems to be transitional, but the face of it looks perfectly two dimensional with no imperfections. I'll want to make sure of that when we start using magic again, but it seems a reasonable starting point for now. It also fits what I expected."

She worked her way along the side to where the plane changed direction into three dimensions, apparently making the artifact an equilateral cube. "Likewise, a 90 degree angle. I'll bet it's perfect to as many zeroes as you care to write. I wonder who coined the term 'grid'? Madoka will have to introduce me to her someday. It could be that girl was just noting the square to cube nature. Or it may be she took it to the next step, too."

_{"Next step?"}_

"At any other time, I'd suggest you review my efforts to examine the geometry of mazes in our universe, or mine I should say, but you need to stay focused on being ready to fight. Let's keep looking and I think it'll make more sense soon," the dark haired girl said, oddly evasive. "Now we walk in like a human would. The grid still seems torpid, but let's stay prepared."

Nothing happened. Although the haziness remained around them (Homura being unwilling to risk going to normal human sight and potentially missing a threat) the reality surrounding them was unchanged. The veteran magical girl carefully walked around the space, moving a few things around and dropping a pen she found on one shelf to the floor.

"As you've been told by Sakura-san and Tomoe-san, nothing unusual. I bet Newton or Da Vinci would feel right at home in here. It could be a weekday with people working all day, none the wiser to the predator lurking, asleep, right alongside them." She paused a moment to bend down and pick up the pen with her free hand.

"In some ways it's no different from a witch, really," she continued, placing the pen again where she had found it before wandering aimlessly within the maze to continue getting the feel of the structure. "Witch mazes would exist inside busy hospitals and most would never know the danger lurking right there. The difference, or at least one difference, is these wraiths overlay this dimension, whereas witches had no significant Euclidian existence in my universe."

_{"By Euclidian existence you mean mazes didn't cover space in the real-world? They were magical points that opened up into a pocket dimension."}_

"Exactly."

_{"There were two exceptions, though, weren't there? Walpurgisnacht for one. Its maze overlaid reality like a wraith grid. So did your living room."}_

Homura winced, still tender on the topic of her nemesis and unprepared to be mentioned alongside it in the same 'breath' by her other self. To her credit, she recovered quickly. "Yes. I'm actually impressed, Akemi-san. I wasn't sure I would have been able to reason that out at fourteen even with two weeks to review some of the memories I've since collected. I started out smarter than I thought."

_{"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult."}_

"That's up to you, really," she responded with a shrug as she made her way out of the grid and turned again to face it. Nothing had changed for her time within its confines. "Still, I wouldn't go so far as to compare my little laboratory experiment or Walpurgisnacht's unconfined and undefined maze to a wraith grid just yet. For that we need more real data, and it's time we gathered it."

Homura backed away a bit and looked the manifestation up-and-down. "So let's start with what do we know about wraiths and their grids. You've been dealing with them twice as long as I have and I don't have the memories of your initial training with Tomoe-san, so you start."

The newest magical girl in Mitakihara City thought back to her initial training five weeks prior, seemingly so very long ago. _{"Well, wraiths feed on and harness negative human emotions. One on one individually, but in groups they can channel those emotions, drawing on them from a distance like the watershed of a stream. Mami and Kyubey call the flow of emotion 'miasma'."}_

_["I wonder if the same girl who coined 'grid' came up with that one, or if it's older?"] _the veteran interrupted absently.

_{"No clue. Do you want me to finish?"} _There really was no covering annoyance – or sarcasm – when talking to oneself, nor did she try.

_["Um, sorry. Keep going."] _Homura's face actually took on a sheepish expression with that thought, something the younger Homura aspect found reassuring and perhaps even a little amusing.

_{"As I was saying before I was interrupted,"} _she resumed, knowing her now dramatized annoyance likely wasn't fooling anyone,_ {"if there's enough emotion available wraiths can form grids, which would be lakes if we continued the water analogy. Grids act as reservoirs for the emotions collected and allow the wraiths to extend the territory they drain, not to mention augment their offensive and defensive capabilities."}_

Homura's eyebrows creased as a new thought occurred to her. _["Have you ever learned where the wraiths come from?"]_

_{"Mami says no one knows. They seem to just appear in places where there are strong negative emotions."}_

_["I don't particularly like the idea of spontaneous generation,"] _she scowled at the distasteful thought._ ["Someday we need to find a way to replicate Francesco Redi's experiment and apply it to wraiths, but that's for another time. I was just curious."]_

_{"Francesco Redi?"}_

Homura smiled. _["Look it up sometime, hopefully not right after you've eaten."]_

The fourteen year old junior high schooler that was the Homura of this universe got the impression her more experienced self was perhaps enjoying the senseirole a bit too much at the moment. Unfortunately, she couldn't come up with an appropriate comeback before her veteran self continued with a new thought.

_["It really is remarkable how they take emotions and transform them to usable energy. I have to assume that's part of how we're somehow averting heat death in this universe. I've never heard Kyubey or Tomoe-san speak of that at all."]_

_{"They haven't to me either. The first I heard of that was when you came. I've just been told that Kyubey facilitates our wishes to make magical girls to fight wraiths. If not for us, no one would protect humanity from being overrun by their own despair."}_

Homura's forehead creased again and she rocked her head back and forth as if weighing that explanation in her mind. _ ["I don't buy the aliens would do anything out of concern for a backwater such as Earth unless there was something for their kind to gain no matter what universe we're talking about. Anyway, Madoka's wish didn't deal at all with solving heat death and she implicitly maintained the magical girl system, so I have to believe that's still the incubators' goal here. The rules to achieve it have just changed to accommodate the lack of witches. Which loops back to where do the wraiths come from?"]_

The younger personality had nothing to add to that and so remained silent.

Homura bit her lip thoughtfully before resuming speaking. "So all we have to go on for now is the grid here. Think back to what we learned from the police. Electricity worked fine for the train and the train station, but electronic signals from the cameras and other security systems didn't. They also indicated the train had trouble stopping when it arrived at the station. That seems to suggest the grid interferes with electronic signals in the real-world. I wonder…"

Homura pulled the laptop from under her arm, situating it using her left arm alone to hold it with the joint of the laptop nestled in her elbow, and opened it with her right hand. Rather than turning it on in the traditional sense, she used magic to activate it and repurpose it for the task she had in mind.

The screen became active immediately, something unheard of for a Windows device, and displayed what looked to be a blank chart with straight lines indicating x axis and y axis. Her right hand now grasped the middle of a long cable extending from the device. At the end of the cable was a clip.

_{"Repurposing a mundane non-weapon object with magic. You learned that trick from Kyouko-san."}_

"I would have figured it out myself pretty quickly," was the dismissive response. "In any case, I now have what I need - a wave meter. Electricity is a wave, Akemi-san. And like all waves it has a frequency. Here in western Japan that frequency, the distance from left to right between each wave on a chart, is 60 hertz, plus or minus." As she was explaining this, Homura turned to walk to the opposite side of the storage room from the grid and placed the clip on an electrical wire running along one of the walls. "I'm choosing a circuit that doesn't pass near the grid as my control."

The display on the laptop screen briefly resorted itself and quickly settled on 60hz, plus or minus given the normal variation inherent in an electrical system. "Okay, nothing unusual there. Now let's try a circuit affected by the grid."

Removing the clip, Homura walked to wiring outside the grid but which passed through it. She attached the clip and watched the result on the screen. "Interesting." The wave form was similar to before, but with some additional weaker signals outside the 60hz main one. The variation of the main signal continued, but the additional signals were precise and static.

_{"So signals on a wire passing through the grid pick up side signals, perhaps a 'fingerprint' as it were, from it. Not strong enough to mess with the useful flow of electricity, but probably enough to mess with transmission of information due to all the added noise. That could explain why the camera signals were lost in the train station when Sayaka disappeared but the electricity still ran for the train and the lights in the station."}_

"Seems reasonable," Homura said, again clearly impressed with her middle-school self. "Still, that train was run by computers and those computers managed to operate even inside the grid or else nothing would have worked and the train would have been stuck there at the station. We noted the boundary of the grid was transitional. Perhaps signals gain the fingerprint when they traverse the grid boundary. Individual computers can cross the boundary because they're small enough to be unaffected by the transitional effect. The brakes on the train, however, crossed the grid boundary as the train came to the station, hence the issues with stopping. Same with the cameras."

Homura removed the clip and held it up, rearranging its shape into a small antenna as she again made her way across the warehouse from the grid. "I'm curious. Radio waves carry information through frequency as well. FM stands for frequency modulation. Let's see what happens when we put the grid between us and a broadcast."

Homura walked around the grid and the wave form did, indeed, change. The signal for each station was still there at the appropriate frequencies, but so were 'fingerprint' frequencies. The added signals were each very weak, but frequent enough to fall within all the stations. It seemed likely any broadcast would be corrupted to one extent or another if received close to a grid boundary. Presumably, the effect on a broadcast would be highly localized due to reflected signal around the grid quickly washing out the signal affected by the wraiths, but for someone inside a grid or very near it, radios would certainly be affected.

"I wonder if the 'fingerprints' fall all along the EM spectrum?" Homura continued thinking out loud. "If we were to drop down to human normal vision and look closely, we might see some minor color irregularities due to 'fingerprints' in the visual light range."

_{"It's a wonder humans haven't figured this out. It's one thing if there's nothing they can detect other than disappearing people. It's another if grids are doing all this."}_

The veteran paused to think a moment. "Who's to say they haven't, Akemi-san? At least recently. In the past few decades it wouldn't surprise me if there have been people who have followed these 'fingerprints', and how unwise of them. Not only are they walking into the lion's den as they go to examine the source of their phenomenon, but hasn't Tomoe-san pointed out humans who know about wraiths and make a serious deal about them tend to attract their attention?"

_{"Yeah, she has said that. It's why I haven't dared say anything about all this to Mom, and why I was so circumspect with Kaname Junko despite how wistful she was about the idea of a daughter."}_

Homura backed away from the grid a bit and looked it over again, marveling at it along with all the other differences of this world without Madoka. "All in all, a pretty remarkable structure," she said, nodding in apparent satisfaction. "These wraiths seem to be a highly ordered phenomenon. First their exacting geometry, then how they take disordered human emotion and transform it into something practical, and then their EM fingerprint. They're the antithesis of chaotic witches and I must admit I feel an affinity for them already."

The casual remark from the veteran Homura struck a chord in the more innocent of the two, reminding her again of her discomfort at some of the changes that had already come over her as she was adapting to the arrival of her self of the multiple timelines._ {"Affinity? Homura, they're killers!"}_

The hand holding the antenna dropped slowly to her side. Although the time traveler was trying to hide the extent of it, there was no doubt to the observing Homura the deep sadness the exclamation had brought suddenly to the forefront of the supposedly more jaded girl's heart. _["Yes, Akemi-san, yes they are."]_ She drew a deep breath and sighed loudly even as the internal dialog went on. _["And so am I. That means now so are you. Don't forget that you and your universe exist as you do because of the trail of blood I paved in order to save Madoka. Also realize, as a killer we're best suited to fight killers."]_

Without thinking about her words, the passive observer replied indignantly to the concept of guilt by association._{"Speak for yourself, soul sister. There was no fulminating world-killer for the oracle and the nutcase to threaten this time around, no best friend for the despairing swashbuckler to guilt into contracting. Magical girls in my world have been destroying wraiths for eons just fine without being murderers. My hands are clean, thank you very much."}_

The reflexive outrage evaporated as Homura's eyes closed and her body tensed in response to the familiar self-loathing felt by the personality now in control, guilt fed once by the memory of her crimes against her best friend and her wish, fed twice by the contrite feelings of her younger self now recognizing the full impact of her careless words.

_Murderer_. The word hung there between them, having been said, unable to be unsaid.

Her fists tightened and her fingernails dug painfully into her palms; she felt a single tear track her flushed cheek. Awareness of the outside world vanished for a brief moment as the raven-haired girl sorted out her internal acrimony.

_{She's reliving the shooting again. Baka! My wish is about protection, too. I'm sure it's one of my defining traits, kinda like selflessness was for Madoka and justice is for Sayaka. There's no clearer demonstration of order than to protect. The only difference between us is I didn't live her life. If I had, I'd have done all the same things…and I'd be feeling what she does. She was already down, and I kicked her in her most vulnerable spot in the way only I can.}_

It was a hard realization, and she felt driven to make it right. Passive as she was, the younger Homura born of a world founded on Madoka's selfless love reached out with her heart to the Homura who had sacrificed so much out of love for Madoka.

_{"I'm sorry, Homura,"}_ she started haltingly, unsure how to put her feelings into words and hoping having made her own emotions apparent that it wouldn't be necessary. _{"I was not only out of line, I was also wrong. I would have done everything you did…"}_Her words trailed off as words failed her.

Tenseness ebbed in the silence as Homura once again worked to cram the memory of her crime against her best friend to the back of her mind. Taking another deep breath, she sighed as her eyes opened and she wiped away the tear with the back of the hand holding the antenna sensor.

_["Yes, yes you would have."]_

Glancing around, the veteran Homura's internal shields solidified, rather than opening to meet her other self, and she shared nothing more with the younger presence. Unsure what that meant and feeling suddenly exposed, the passive personality herself regrouped and reestablished her own emotional and mental barriers.

It was then the younger Homura realized in that moment she had been essentially offering herself up…and her older self hadn't taken advantage of the situation to absorb her troublesome younger self. It was a stunning realization, but she lacked time to examine it before the active personality began interacting with the world again.

"We're fortunate the wraiths didn't wake up when we were distracted, Akemi-san," she resumed emotionlessly. "You agreed to be on the lookout and it is unwise to leave yourself open. Please stay ready this time and keep your focus up or no one will be protecting anything anymore."

The chiding tone and double meanings left no doubt that the moment was over and Homura-sensei was all business again as she calmly returned to her examination. "Okay, so we have what appears to be a perfect cube from all observations. An artifact that is the epitome of order, but which is only a piece of the puzzle given the real contents are hidden elsewhere."

Walking up to the grid again, Homura slipped inside while continuing to explain. "Now comes the hard part. Usually we just use magic to break in, but that's cheating. If we want to understand this thing, we have to find the missing right angles."

Her previous confusion locked away for later examination, the indigenous Homura once again was focused on watching for danger as well as paying close attention to her other self's examination of the object before them._{"Um, missing angles?"}_

"If I'm right, the grid analogy of a wraith space extends beyond what we're seeing here. I'm thinking when magical girls break though the grid to find the wraiths, and then jump from space to space within the grid, that they're jumping along the edges or cells of a polychoron, specifically a four-dimensional hypercube. What we have before us would then be one 'side' of such an object."

_{"A tesseract? I'm remembering over some of your earlier studies on four dimension geometry, the stuff that actually makes sense to me, and wouldn't we all be, like, dead if wraiths are four dimensional? We'd have energy blasts coming from inside us."}_

"You've seen things explode inside wraith grids, seemingly out of nowhere," Homura said with a shrug indicating she was unsure herself. "It may be that our magic prevents it from happening to us."

_{"But we follow them all over the grid and we're three dimensional."}_

The young scientist was prepared for that question. "Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Being a magical girl is all about instinct. In many ways, we're more like animals than sapient creatures. We commonly think of humans as being born knowing nothing and having to learn everything, even how to walk."

Homura slowly paced along the face of the grid from the inside, the action emphasizing her words. "On the other hand, magical girls are born with the knowledge and skills, and usually even the weapons, to fight wraiths. Magical girls are more like tigers than humans. Still, there's a lot that humans can do innately, without any learning or thought, and that often limits the ability to perceive the universe as it really is."

Homura continued her visual examination of the boundary, her thoughts on the subject continuing silently. _["Consider this, most people have a hard time initially thinking of light being a wave because they only see the light 'beam'. It may be the same for us. Wherever that knowledge comes from that allows us to traverse the grids may be taking the easy path and simply allowing us to perceive everything in the familiar three dimensions. Our magic is translating it all for us without us even thinking about it. It may be that when we break into wraiths grids and travel through them that we're four dimensional beings but we just can't perceive it any more than we can see the waves making up a light beam. In fact, now that I think about it, that may explain why I'm having such a hard time trying to perceive outside of three dimensions right now even with magic. The instincts are preventing me from seeing what may be right there."]_

_{"So assuming you're right about the grids, what does it mean?"}_

_["I'm not sure. This is all early on and there's a lot I still need to learn – again, like how to find a right angle into four dimensions."]_

Homura had been pacing all this time within the shimmering space that was the grid's presence in the real-world, looking but not finding what she was searching for. While peering intently along the inner line of one edge near a corner of the cube, the air behind her, outside her field of vision but registering on her supernatural senses, began to coalesce.

_{"Look…!"}_

The thought never completed.

The computer fell from Homura's fingers as she drew back the energies she had placed in it. Her purple magic flared as she transformed. The sound of a now forgotten laptop crashing to the floor echoed in the supposedly empty room as she dove out of the cube.

A barrier appeared between herself and the direction from which she had come, surprising the indigenous Homura. A blast of force and energy assaulted the barrier and flowed around it, a barrier which followed the girl as she placed more distance between herself and the source of the attack.

_["Guess they're awake now."]_ Looking back, Homura could see two wraiths now manifest on the same plane as she, although remaining inside the real-world confines of the cube she had been inspecting moments before.

_{"I'm impressed you're able to use barriers. Now, let's pull up my bow"} _The natural archer prepared to guide her counterpart personality much as the other presence had done with her.

_["No need."]_ Turning away, Homura ran toward the office where she had first entered the warehouse.

_{"Are we running away?"}_the indigenous Homura asked in disbelief.

_["Quiet. I need to focus on fighting and your questions right now aren't helping."]_

_{"But…"}_

The passive Homura sensed an admittedly gentle shove as the active one did her best to place her as far to the back of her awareness as possible. Perplexed as she was at the situation, she realized this was exactly how she had treated the other presence at times, sometimes not so gently, and in any case she was along for the ride and whatever happened would be up to her counterpart. {"_Okay, shutting up now."}_

More blasts ravaged Homura's barrier, splintering some of the surrounding inventory as she made her way to and through the door to the office. Jumping up on a desk she broke open the case to the swords she had noted earlier. She grabbed the longer of the two with both hands before jumping back down.

Placing her body against the wall next to the door, she peered around it cautiously to ensure the wraiths were staying put. Knowing the mundane wall material wouldn't stand up to a concerted wraith blast, she shored it up magically as she finally took full stock of the situation.

"Two wraiths on this plane and the grid is powering up now. Akemi-san, any idea how many are inside?"

_{"I thought you didn't need me."}_

Homura's face formed a scowl as she cautiously peeked around the corner again to monitor the wraiths. "Now isn't the time to be passive-aggressive. I never had access to your memories like you did some of mine before I got kicked here. I've absorbed what I could watching you these past three weeks, but your training with Tomoe-san about how to gauge these things isn't something you've thought about in detail since I got here. You always operate with the others and they do the gauging. So how many are we dealing with that are still not manifest?"

This wasn't the time to stand on hurt pride. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, the indigenous Homura reached out and guided the active Homura's mental 'hands' as they reached out with magic and 'took the temperature' of the grid, so to speak.

_{"Four or five more, I think. They're still waking up so it's hard to tell, but no more than six for sure."}_

_["Hmmm, so that's how it's done. Neat trick that. Like I said, we interact through magic with things like wraiths and grids using concepts that are familiar to us. I doubt you were really measuring heat there."]_

_{"Um, sensei, can't the lesson wait until after we aren't in danger anymore."}_

_["We're not in any danger, Akemi-san,"]_she responded coolly as she tested the heft of the blade and adjusted her grip on the well-worn hilt.

_{"I'd believe you more if you weren't dismissing all our combat abilities."}_

_["Yours, perhaps, but not mine. Your bow is nice, I admit, but I currently see no need to use it. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't get a weapon when I contracted. I lamented it at the time, but it turned out to be the best thing that could possibly have happened to me. It forced me to move immediately beyond my nonexistent starting instincts, which often get new girls killed when they stop thinking – note that both local veterans, Tomoe and Sakura, learned to change their magic. _

_"I had to be creative from the start. I'm like a human in that I had to find my own weapons. I can make anything my claws, something you would be wise to start learning._

_And speaking of claws, it's time to shred some prey."]_

Moving through the door Homura stood again in the open warehouse. The grid now extended to cover more of the warehouse floor. She quickly discerned the borders on this plane had grown to cover a short distance outside, beyond the completely irrelevant walls of the building.

The artifact shimmered and the fiery red glow of a fully active grid was now apparent to her enhanced sight. The two wraiths that had originally manifested were still present inside the confines of the grid. Energy lanced out and again was redirected by a new barrier.

_{"Neat trick, those barriers. You should teach it to me sometime."}_

Considering, as she was, her plan of attack, the focused, battle-worn Homura responded without any real thought._ ["The easiest way for that would be to just stop being so stubborn. You'd get it all then, so we could protect this world rather than lose ourself in this endless, useless bickering."]_

The hanging implication, that the universe born of Madoka's wish couldn't protect itself without outside help- and apparently without her, stung the suddenly confused passive Homura. _{How dare she…}_

Before she could form a retort, however, her body returned to motion as she closed the distance with the grid and the two manifest wraiths.

Infusing her violet magic into the katana, Homura batted aside the next force blast using the sword rather than a barrier. A nearby crate exploded in a display of flaming splinters as the redirected force hit it, but she ignored the pyrotechnics.

Using her momentum to dodge a physical swipe by one wraith, she swung at the other, cleaving it in half with her inertia augmenting the blow. She felt it vanish before her blade had swept through it

With perhaps five wraiths lurking out of sight and no back-up, speed remained her best friend.

Maintaining her momentum, she prepared to encounter the wall on the other side of the grid. Reinforcing the surface with magic to ensure it wouldn't break under the impact of her feet; she leapt at the wall, feet first, and redirected herself into movement along its length.

She sped up, helped along by the force of yet another blast which would have caught her had she simply used the wall to stop her movement. Instead, with the help of a barrier behind her to prevent any damage, the blast helped her regain the momentum lost on the directional change.

Pushing forcefully off from the wall she hit the ground hard and sundered the remaining manifest wraith before exiting the grid back into the open warehouse.

Only when she was well clear of the grid did she come to a stop and turn back to consider the shimmering space again.

"Okay, science lab is over." Homura approached the boundary slowly, prepared for any surprise. "Time to step through the looking glass…"

Slicing through the boundary of the grid with her sword, much as Kyouko would do with her spear, Homura opened a hole into another space. The familiar action to the time traveler was essentially the same used to gain access to a witch's maze.

[_Some day, Madoka, you'll have to explain to me why some things are so different and some are the same.]_

Crossing the threshold, she abandoned thought and jumped down the rabbit hole...

* * *

*****Author's Note*****

**Scīscitātiō** refers to the performance of research, more specifically the act of questioning rather than the investigation itself (the latter being more accurately "investīgātiō"). Given the differences in timelines she's experienced, not to mention the effects of wishes she has seen, Homura (my Homura at least) started asking questions. She's never stopped since…

Yes, Homura is talkative. I suspect she's wanted someone to understand her for a while given her despondence in the show, and who better than someone who is the flip side of her coin? Anyway, I hate endless silent exposition and it gives me a mechanism to explain things more seamlessly, kinda like Robin to Batman if you know the history if why the Boy Wonder was created in the first place.

My wraith grids draw heavily from what little we see at the end of Ep 12 regarding wraiths/demons and their manifestations. They seem to me to clearly like squares and cubes based on their appearance as well as the structure we see coming down after Sayaka disappears in the new universe and we rejoin Homura as she discovers the ribbons. I just took it one step further. I'm sure there are plenty of holes (wait, wouldn't that be spheres?) that one could punch in my use of polychorons. Same, perhaps, with Homura's musings about the EM effects of wraith grids. Hopefully given the presence of wishes and magic in this world, not to mention Madoka's reboot, I'm not torturing the bounds of credulity terribly much. I'm sure my loyal reviewers will make sure to let me know if I have. ;-)

And finally, lest you think I've completely lost it, I ask everyone to please not lose the forest for the trees. The perspective of each character is limited. Case in point- Homura doesn't know everything. Far from it, she's extremely limited being so new to the magical girl business in this universe. What she knew before, while interesting, is more likely now to lead her astray than to accurately answer any of her questions. Moreso, Fiona doesn't know everything, despite all her data points stemming from Audrey's wish. She just knows what the magical girls know, and that's really not much. She's also blinded by her own experiences and emotions. Most importantly, the incubators don't know everything. They know a lot, yes, but Kyubey keeps admitting he doesn't get human emotions. Yet those very same human emotions are at the core of his mission on Earth. Bottom line- they all can be wrong, and at times each will be. It's what everyone **doesn't** know, rather than what they **do**, and how they act on their ignorance or incomplete knowledge, that is the core to Mother's Journey. There's only one being who does know everything, and sadly She can't interfere now that things have been set in motion.

Once more, I thank my wonderful beta, linkhyrule5. We had more vigorous debate on this chapter than on the prior ones. Anything that doesn't work or seems off is most certainly where I chose not to take his advice. :-)

My apologies for all the description and explanation in this chapter- we're still world building. Next chapter we find out what Mami and Kyouko have been up to all this time. :-)

Happy reading!  
~Gwen

* * *

Homura-sensei wanted to include this in her lecture to her captive younger personality audience, but I suspected my readers' eyes might glaze over so I cut it. She's insistent it still be presented although her indigenous soul-sister is grateful to have avoided it. Here it is for those who want further inservicing in wraith grids, tesseracts, and Homura-sensei's theory.

_["Occam's Razor demands we also consider that wraiths and magical girls truly are three dimensional creatures that can create and exist within unfolded four dimensional spaces in three dimensions. When you unfold a cube, you get six two dimensional square sides any one of which borders four others at a line. When you unfold a tesseract into three dimensions, you get eight cubes, any one of which is bordered by six others on at least one a face. Those cubes are the 'sides' of the tesseract, and the four dimensional 'interior' is lost just like with the unfolded cube and its third dimension. In many ways what I've seen makes the most sense if we're all just walking the 'sides' of a tesseract since I get no sense either wraiths or magical girls perceive the 'interior' at all – well except perhaps for the exploding objects."]_


	7. A Mother's Folly

Margin Note

Although she later forgave me for it, my repudiation of my eldest daughter is easily my greatest regret…at least while they still lived. In my defense, after risking my life and fortune defending those cynically accused of witchcraft, generally to steal the fortunes of heirless widows, it was quite a surprise for a landed noblewoman in 16th century Scotland to discover that her daughter had gained magical powers by contracting with a strange beast, even if it did save my life. I am grateful I was later given the chance to eat my words. I've lost count of the mothers who never took that chance before they no longer had the opportunity. It's one of the many great tragedies that surround these girls.

~F

**A ****Mother's Folly**

_Saturday, May 21  
__(a little over three weeks after Sagitta Luminis)  
__(Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)_

"_I thought I told ya to go fuck yourself."_

Kyouko knew she was being tailed even as she entered the poorly located wraith grid, but she didn't want to risk waking or losing her quarry by first arguing with Mami. The structure held little power, having been erected outside in the shade on the north side of a wide building.

Wraiths could be surprising when cornered, however, and she wasn't interested in a fight or a chase – in her current mood she wanted a slaughter. She had seen to business, and worked out some of her frustration, with the handful of torpid wraiths that had been hiding during the daytime sunshine and never knew what hit them.

"_Actually, to be precise, you told me to fuck off."_

Halting in mid-motion as she reached down to collect her single reward for the fight, Kyouko stopped to look up and regard a blonde girl wearing the uniform of a Mitakihara Junior High School student sitting idly on the edge of a nearby building, her feet swinging back and forth opposite each other ten stories above the ground. _She looks like a little kid up there like that. How does she manage to look so carefree given everything I know is on her mind? Put a lollipop in one hand and a big stick a' cotton candy in the other and she'd look fresh from goin' to the circus._

"_I think that's the first time I ever heard ya use that word before, Mami. I might forgive ya followin' me if ya came down here and actually say it to my face. Wouldn't that be a sign a' the apocalypse or somethin'?"_

"_You'd have to ask Akemi-san. Isn't she the one who believes she's seen the end of the world?"_

Kyouko expression darkened briefly at the comment before she chuckled and shook her head as if at an irony. She waited for Mami, still carrying the bag of apples from the press conference, to rise and glide down from the height using her trademark yellow ribbons. "_I must be rubbin' off on ya. Ya don't usually talk trash about people like that."_

"Well, you _were_ my first student," the blonde magical girl said with a warm smile, verbally now that she was within comfortable speaking distance. "Can I help it if I learn some of your bad habits along the way? You've had the longest to corrupt your sensei."

The normally fiery redhead only shrugged silently as she retrieved the cube at her feet and stuck it in the designated pocket of her crimson outfit. Once it was safely stored away, she shifted back to street clothes before making her way in whatever direction her soul gem indicated another small enclave of wraiths was hiding.

"I'm still amazed you survived as long as you did living like this," Mami marveled as they walked together, determined not to let her friend remain silent. "Picking them off during the day when they're weaker and in small groups. Staying out of their way at night when they collect together and prey on people. All the stories I've heard tell me it's a slow but steady road to suicide. You'll have to show me sometime how you cast such a wide net with so little magic."

"It's not much, I'll agree, but it is a whole lot easier – and safer I might add – once ya know what to look for." Kyouko was proud of having mastered an existence others derided – critics she'd cheerfully point out were all either dead or younger as a magical girl than she was. Her face was a window for her enthusiasm. "Nights don't havta be so bad, either. Ya just havta be choosy about your targets. You're the one who refused to let people get hurt and insisted on fightin' the strong grids at night."

"It almost got me killed, too," the blonde girl noted soberly, dampening Kyouko's fervor. "Back when I was on my own after you left and before Miki-san came on the scene. You told me to go away then too, that you didn't want me around. So why did you keep popping up when I was in over my head?"

Mami looked over at her friend to gauge the girl's reaction to her potentially uncomfortable words. Kyouko wasn't fond of deep sharing. "You could have just let me self-destruct. It couldn't have been for the renewal cubes or else you would have chosen the moments when things were going well, rather than when my magic was drained and I was in danger of dying. You knew I'd have joyfully taken you back any time."

Annoyed at the direction of the conversation, Kyouko stopped and turned to face her mentor. Her departure at the time had devastated her friend, leaving her lonely and despairing. She knew that. From the look on her face, the older girl was still sensitive about it. Kyouko could understand it all too well, but she wasn't comfortable sharing like Mami.

Sharing meant being vulnerable, and Kyouko had enough of that already to last a lifetime. The scars she had to prove it might not be obvious, but they were there nonetheless. She didn't appreciate her best friend poking at old wounds.

"I told ya, Mami, I'm not interested in addin' to your shrunken head collection. Stop tryin' to fix me. Unlike our cracked little rookie, I ain't broken."

"I suppose not." Mami smiled sadly at her words as her free hand picked an apple out of the bag and threw it to the apple-haired girl, who caught the fruit effortlessly and bit into it.

"You've never told me why you're so neurotic about food, Sakura-san," Mami began again. She started walking in the direction Kyouko had been going, forcing her to choose whether or not to follow; Kyouko chose to follow. "It's compulsive. Something tells me it has to do with what happened to your family. You never did fill me in on the details of what it was like before your wish, or what happened when your family was killed."

"Ya don't give up, do ya blondie?"

Mami just continued walking, leaving Kyouko to sort her feelings.

_She really isn't gonna give up. Dammit. When she's like this we play cat and mouse until she wins. She'll wear me down sooner or later, it's inevitable. _

_It's like her hidden magical talent or something. Damn annoying._

_My only way out is to leave._

_If I walk away we'll all be gone in a month. I know it. That stupid dream of Mami's will be lost forever._

_Am I okay with that?_

_She's the only one who would ever understand the shit that happened._

_Am I willing to leave? To pull the trigger?_

"Okay. If ya really want ta know, I'll tell ya. Hopefully then you'll shut up and leave my head alone. Seriously, I'd think Homura'd be enough ta keep ya busy for at least a few years." The redhead shook her head with a scowl on her face as she shifted her soul gem back to ring form and changed her walking direction, not watching to see if Mami followed her.

**/*/**

"Oooof...um sorry..."

So focused was she on her surroundings, Mami failed to notice Kyouko stop moving and she ran into her. The collision wasn't terribly rough, but the bag and its contents fell from Mami's grasp and fruit scattered on the pathway.

Dropping down quickly to collect the apples, Kyouko placed them reverently back in the bag and took up the burden herself. She glared chidingly at her partner a moment, then indicated for Mami to follow her onto the grounds of what looked to be an old church…a church which had clearly seen better days. The stone structure still basically looked sound, but the stained glass windows were all broken out, most likely from vandals, and anything wooden showed the effects of over a year of direct weathering.

"Bein' here with you brings back memories," Kyouko mused as the two girls made their way to the front of the building.

"It most certainly does," Mami mused as she ran a hand along the grain of the door that surprisingly remained intact despite the damage apparent even from the outside. Despite the deterioration, she could still marvel at the amazing gothic architecture.

"This is the first time I've been back since you had me over to eat with your family that one time." Mami brought her gaze down from the building to consider her friend. "You've been here since then, though, haven't you?"

Kyouko seemed lost in her thoughts for a while before she spoke again. Mami gave her time to process. "Yeah." she eventually agreed. "I brought Sayaka here once right after we took on Homura and you went off one day to focus on firing drills."

"I remember that day," Mami said with a nod. She then cocked her head to one side and scrunched her face in accusation. "You said you two went off for sparring practice."

"We did," Kyouko agreed, then grinned at her friend. "I didn't say where we went for it. This ain't a bad place to practice, doncha think?"

"Were you able to dispel the ghosts?" Mami held her breath as she watched the smile vanish from her friend's face.

The redhead's expression grew cold and her eyes narrowed.

"Fuck you, Mami."

Strong words, but she didn't turn away.

Mami took that as a good sign. "That's three times you've propositioned me today. If you keep trying, I might just take you up on it, you know."

Kyouko's eyes widened at the words and her face cycled from irritation to shock and then settled into a smile. "And here I thought with that stick up your ass that you'd be as straight as one'a Homura's arrows."

Mami smiled enigmatically, raising her eyebrows in a coy "you never know" expression.

Kyouko shook her head at her friend's gentle, disarming antics. "If you're tryin' ta save me Mami, this is a strange way a doin' it. Hearin' you talk like this, I think I've heard everythin' now and I can die a happy girl."

Mami's face became thoughtful again and Kyouko's smile faded as she realized the next salvo from her friend the shrink was on its way. "Is that what you want now? To die?"

She knew she was pushing, that her gamble could easily backfire and push her best friend even faster along the self-destructive path the increasingly erratic girl was taking. Still, Mami knew her last, best chance to get through to her dearest friend was likely right here and right now.

Rather than get angry or irritated again, Kyouko tilted her head as she considered the words. She then chuckled and pushed the doors open, striding into the familiar church and kicking some boards as she went. "I'd be lyin' to ya if I didn't say the thought hadn't crossed my mind."

Mami followed the redhead. "I suspected as much. I saw your dive for Miki-san. You knew what was happening to her- when the grid came down, I think you were just feigning confusion. I've told you the stories I've heard from up north about girls disappearing together. You wanted to die with her, to vanish with Sayaka."

Kyouko stopped at the words, obviously pondering her next action. She turned – without looking in Mami's eyes – and handed back the bag of apples before making her way up to the altar and beginning to dust it off.

Sensing Kyouko needed to think and that her simple continued presence was an indication things were going as well as could possibly be expected, Mami made her way to the nearest convenient seat and planted herself and the apples. She knew there was nothing more she could say until the newly industrious girl herself chose to break the silence, so she just watched as her friend turned from the now-clean altar and began clearing away the debris that littered the area around it.

Mami was content to stay as long as it took for the younger girl to respond to her mentor's latest words.

"I did, Mami," Kyouko shared a long time later as she stood at the pulpit, surveying the rather large clearing in the debris between herself and the altar. "Are you happy now?"

Frustration and anger were evident from her tightly clenched fists which gripped the edges of the weathered lectern. She looked not at the other occupant of the room as she spoke, but rather out to the top pews as if giving a sermon.

"Sayaka looked up to me as much as she was a pain in the ass and kept poking at my attitude. But in the end I couldn't save her..."

Her voice caught and, despite her dry mouth, she swallowed before continuing.

"...just like I couldn't save Momo."

A swift kick slammed into the wooden pulpit and it splintered from disconsolate wrath.

Mami watched as her friend's rage collapsed along with the hapless target of her umbrage.

Disheartened, Kyouko pondered the shattered remains at her feet a while before eventually making her way to the bench where Mami was sitting. She plopped herself down and began munching on an apple she pulled randomly from the bag.

"We're gonna lose Homura too, ya know," the redheaded girl noted forlornly with her mouth full between bites. "She won't last as screwed up as she is."

She stopped chewing and seemed to examine her apple thoughtfully. "I'm sicka losin' people," she added in a soft, dispirited voice after a brief pause. Kyouko looked weary, something to which Mami could most certainly relate, and for the same reason.

"I understand, Kyouko," Mami said, making rare use of the redhead's given name and placing a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder.

Kyouko shrugged the hand off and she swallowed to empty her mouth. "Do you really, Mami?"

Watching as the blonde girl looked surprised, then irritated, the former priest's daughter started talking again before her mentor could protest. "I know you lost your parents too, Mami. Really, I'm not taking away from how much that sucks. Still," she hesitated just a single moment, "no, I really don't think you can understand. You see, I told you my family died due to wraiths."

Once again she faltered, taking a deep breath that hitched in her throat before she forced herself to continue.

"I lied."

*****PGBR*****

(Sixteen months earlier)

Kyouko was tired.

As much as the idea of her being so tired was ridiculous considering she could re-energize her body with magic anytime she wanted to, she was bone weary…an exhaustion having nothing to do with her muscles.

It had been a difficult night.

The wraiths had been particularly bad, and even teamed up with Mami the two of them had been hard pressed at times to come out on top. It seemed as if the strength and number of the wraiths increased even as their paired ability to fight the vermin improved.

Plentiful renewal cubes and the resulting magic be damned, a never-ending task was still draining.

Beyond that had been Mami's never-ending pestering of Kyouko regarding her dour mood this past week. While Kyouko appreciated her mentor's concern, she had no desire to drag her partner into problems that were Kyouko's alone.

_There's nothing Mami can do to help me with Dad. Finding some way to convince him to listen, to see reason, is my job. After my wish, you'd think I'd be better at it. Then again, that's what got me into this mess in the first place, _she thought sadly as the familiar stomachache born of guilt and regret returned.

A flurry of January snowflakes were still falling lightly around her, adding to the thin layer of stark white blanketing her world. Normally the sound of snow crunching under her feet would have cheered her with the promise of fun in a rare winter wonderland with her precious little sister, her mother looking on as hot chocolate warmed in the kitchen awaiting the freezing girls' return to the warm, inviting house.

That was before her father's break from the diocese...before the time her family spent living hand-to-mouth...and before she had ruined everything with her misguided effort to help the man who had always been the center of her world.

The snow now served only as a reminder of the desolation that was now her world.

Kyouko sluggishly approached her house attached to the church where her father preached…correction, _had _preached until about a week ago. She could see the confused faithful milling around both inside and outside the building, trying to find the salvation they were no longer receiving from their pastor, from the man they felt compelled to listen to.

Even in the pre-dawn hours they would sit in the church, waiting. Eventually each lost soul would depart to tend to his or her own daily duties. Some would come back repeatedly. Despite Kyouko having made the wish that had brought them here, she had no idea what caused some to come again and some to not return.

Honestly, after the events of the past week, she no longer cared.

_I used to care...about a lot of things, but that seems like a lifetime ago. Now all I want is my dad back._

Words didn't exist to describe the depths plumbed by Kyouko's disenchantment. She'd lived her entire life for her father and his Good Works. Looked up to the man since she could raise her eyes. Listened to and believed every word he said. And yet the one time she needed him to listen to her, him to give her a chance to explain, him to keep an open mind – what had he done?

He'd condemned her. Called her a demon, a devil, a witch.

_That's crazy. I fight demons or whatever they're called every night and he calls _**me** _a monster._

_And yet I'd agree with all of it if he'd then forgive me. It's not like I haven't tried, but..._

Things seemed to be worse for everyone when Kyouko was around – the yelling, the fights, the desperate praying or, even worse, the silence – so she'd become scarce during the afternoons and evenings when she knew her dad was up and, more often than not, drinking. She'd return like a ghost in the pre-dawn hours to check on Momo and tuck her sister into bed, slipping treats to the girl since she suspected food was once again becoming a challenge, what with her mother now entirely occupied trying to manage her derelict husband.

Kyouko had tried speaking to the woman on several occasions and had either been ignored by the tired nurturer or been told 'please not now'. As much as she was desperate to explain herself to her mom, she didn't have the heart to push the woman given what was happening. What her eldest daughter had done to make it happen.

It was surprising how in just a moment, the time it took to utter a few words, an entire world could collapse.

Her parent's first born considered the closed door of the building that had once been her home for a few moments before attempting to turn the cold knob and enter. She was surprised to find the door locked. _We never lock the door. That's odd._ Undeterred, Kyouko used magic to flip the latch and she opened the door into the house.

The silence was broken only by the soft hum of a refrigerator and the ticking of a clock. Even the normal background noise of as dysfunctional a family as hers was missing.

Making her way further into the familiar building, something made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Things felt…wrong.

As she would when scouting out wraiths and wraith victims (or at least, as she would have before the bottom dropped out from her life) she enhanced her senses of hearing and smell, hoping to find her father and assuming he would be at the source of her disquiet.

One breath and she knew.

_Blood!_

Human blood.

Lots of it.

_Wraiths?_ Although wraiths had no use for the physical bodies of their victims, they still could be notoriously violent as they squeezed out every last iota of their agony, fear and despair.

Despite the smell, she quickly dismissed the thought since there had been no sign of them nearby. Surely she would have noticed something like that so close to her own house. Nor would the faithful outside likely be as calm as they were had they been under the influence of her unseen enemy.

Kyouko moved quickly through the house, following the scent.

Turning a corner into the sitting room, the immensity of her horror began to unfold. Her gut wrenched as she saw her father's body hanging from a rough noose tied to one of the beams of the vaulted ceiling. Still standing near to the dead man was the tall A-frame ladder he used to change lights from the high ceilings in the house and the church.

"No..."

Bile rose in her throat as she took in the first of many sights that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

Kyouko slowly, almost timidly, approached the dangling corpse that had once contained the immense spirit that been the biggest influence in her life...the man for whom she had joyfully used her one wish.

There was no joy within her now as she took in the contorted expression on her father's face, the neck now held at an impossible angle. The man's swollen tongue protruded obscenely from his open mouth. She had been so focused on the coppery smell of blood that only now did she realize that smell competed with the contents of her father's bowels and bladder, both of which must have emptied by reflex when his neck snapped.

Long moments passed as she stood frozen, unable to truly comprehend the reality before her.

The ticking of the old grandfather clock with the pendulum which had so fascinated her as a little girl sounded like cannons blasting...taunting her with the passage of time which had already run out for the man who had once been her shining light.

She wanted, needed, to turn and run from this nightmare place, never to return.

She wanted to fall into a crumpled heap on the floor and weep over the moments she would no longer share with this man who had defined her life.

At the very least she wanted to hold her nose as the cacophony of putrid smells threatened to overwhelm her.

With that last thought, her mind began to reluctantly engage again as reality returned for the girl like a bucket of ice water over her head.

_Where is the blood I'm smelling?_

Seemingly at odds with his position hanging from the ceiling were deep wounds on her father's left arm and shoulder. Given her experience fighting with sharp objects, it was immediately apparent to Kyouko that someone right handed had attacked the man with a sharp, slashing weapon. But the injuries still didn't account for the _heaviness_ of the cloying odors.

She knew she was missing something, knew it was dancing just out of reach in her brain, but her mind adamantly refused to allow her to touch it. Whatever it was was important, she _knew_ it, so she kept digging even as the dread inside her threatened to overwhelm her like the horror before it.

_It's not enough blood. Who was he fighting? Why is he hanging? It just doesn't make any sense! Where..._

In less than a minute, Kyouko's entire world had changed.

In less than a second, in the time it took to think four words, her world died.

_Where are the others?_

The man's hands were covered in blood and she could see a long knife nearby, slick with the increasingly sticky red liquid. None of it was enough to account for the intensity of overwhelming coppery smell in the room.

Her eyes desperately scanned the room for another source of blood, a terrifying fear of what she might find consuming her.

Her heart shattered as she beheld a vision she had wanted never to see.

_Momo!_

Kyouko sprang to her sister hoping beyond hope that the child, her precious Momo, was still alive. Yet even as she clutched the tiny mutilated body to her breast, she could feel it growing cold and stiff.

A wail of uncontrolled grief escaped her as she realized that even if she had been willing to empty her soul gem of every ounce of magic, something she would have gladly done, there was nothing she could do for the poor girl.

"Dammit!" Kyouko cried out through the tears pouring down her cheeks. She slammed her fist down to the ground in frustration beside the peacefully still body of the most precious person in her world.

Even as she descended into the blackness of her grief, her still enhanced hearing picked up a moan coming from the direction of the kitchen, perhaps in response to her cries. Despite everything, every horror, a trickle of hope burbled up from the shards of her shattered heart.

_Mom?_

Kyouko reverently settled her sister's body back on the ground before sprinting around her father's corpse to the source of the noise.

"Mom!" Kyouko screamed as she went to kneel beside the terribly wounded but still barely breathing woman that now constituted the sole surviving member of her family. She assessed the woman's condition, which she noted wasn't good at all with blood loss from several deep knife wounds.

A bloody meat cleaver was loose in the woman's right hand.

Tears streamed freely down Kyouko's face as her mind struggled to puzzle together the horrific events of the past hour. The pieces were now all there, but as she connected them together her mind kept rejecting the picture they painted...and the obvious conclusion no matter how it added up.

_I should have been here!_

With superhuman effort she pushed the thought away to focus on the more important fact. Her mother was still alive, if just barely.

"Mom! Mom, you're gonna to be okay," Kyouko gently assured the woman before her, feeling a slim glimmer of hope that all in her world might not be completely lost. That she wouldn't be left entirely alone. "I can heal you!"

Healing wasn't Kyouko's strength, certainly not like it was for Mami. She could do it, but it was inefficient and took a lot of magic.

Looking at her mom, Kyouko suspected she'd likely drain herself dry just to stabilize the woman, but that was fine. She could always turn to Mami for cubes and a stabilized mother could be easily treated by the authorities in the mundane manner.

Because of her magic, of what her father had called proof of the power of Hell, her mother was going to live.

As the magical girl daughter made to bring her plan into reality, she heard her mother speak in a soft, raspy voice.

"M-Momo's d-dead i-isn't she." The words were almost a groan and clearly came out with great effort from the drained woman.

Kyouko nodded as she started to infuse her magic into healing., every ounce of her attention focused on saving the life of her mother.

"P-please...d-don't use your s-spells on me, Kyouko." With what strength the woman had left she ineffectually batted at her daughter's hands briefly before her strength failed her. The action had no chance of budging a magical girl's limbs, but still it gave Kyouko pause and she stopped her healing effort.

"But Mom, you're dying!" cried the confused and forlorn child.

"Then I'll die if that's God's will," she wheezed resolutely, her eyes clearly brooking no argument even as pink, frothy blood burbled from her lips. "Just as we would have starved when it was God's will, but you weren't satisfied to leave it to God, were you Kyouko?" A ghost of a smile touched the red-tinted lips.

"Mom, please!" Kyouko was nearly frantic as she watched the remaining life ebb from her mother – wanting to save the woman who had given her life but unable to move under the intensity of the stare that held her frozen, unable to act.

"I'm sorry I failed you, my daughter," her mother gasped. A cough wracked her body and even more foamy blood poured from between her lips before she continued. "I'm sorry I didn't realize how vulnerable you were to the Deciever. It's my fault this all happened."

"No! You didn't do anything wrong! Mom! Please! Just let me heal you and then I can explain! It'll all be okay, you'll see!"

"Your father believed...that you couldn't be saved. He was convinced the only way to save us all was to remove us from you since he knew he couldn't remove you from us." Another cough swept her punctured lungs. The dying woman's sad eyes softened.

"I'm not willing to believe that of my little girl…that you can't be saved," she whispered, seeming to pull up every bit of strength to impart her message to the daughter she would be leaving behind.

"My dying prayer is that you'll be saved through our sacrifice. Momo and I, even your Father, we died for your sins. I hope that God sees that as enough to save you from your foolishness, sweetheart," she smiled softly.

Kyouko was stunned by words that forced her to finally acknowledge what her wish had driven her father to do; words that brought back the bible stories the woman had read to her every night of her life when tucking her into bed. Her mother's force of will disoriented the ever obedient girl more than the most terrible blow from a wraith.

Her mind was blank as Kyouko watched the last of her mother's life fade away, feeling helpless due to her upbringing to have any impact on it and unable to change the woman's chosen fate.

The woman who had given birth to her smiled up at her daughter one last time as she uttered her final words with her last breath. "I love you so much, Kyouko. I so hope we all get to meet again in heaven."

*****PGBR*****

(back to present)

"When the last of my family died," Kyouko continued in a louder voice as she tore into yet another apple, the bag now significantly drained and the space around the girl now scattered with cores, "I decided I didn't want their bodies to be found and my father's legacy to be ruined due to my bein' an idiot. I went out lookin' for a hibernation grid once the sun rose and dragged in the bodies. They disappeared with the grid like all the other corpses."

Finishing up the fruit in her hand, she sat examining the thin, white core as if maybe it held the answers to all the questions she's stopped asking. "I used magic to clean up the blood traces as best I could. When the authorities came lookin', they found a few spots of blood I missed but nothing that looked like foul play. My whole family ended up just one more folder in the missin' person's files of Mitakihara prefecture."

Mami had remained silent through the entire story, nodding occasionally when Kyouko had looked to her for reaction. Somewhere in the middle, Mami found herself fidgeting absently with an apple without even realizing she had grabbed one.

She wanted to do something to comfort her friend, but she knew right now that the hurting girl needed to talk herself out, and to reach out would likely just dry up the cathartic flow of words. In the meantime, the round fruit in her hand was feeling the brunt of her frustrated desire to extend her hand to the girl next to her.

_No wonder she's hurting so much_, Mami marveled incredulously as Kyouko's words became halting and the apple-haired girl's features turned thoughtful, almost pensive. _Not only is she __dealing with not having saved her sister, but her mom died thinking she and her whole family had sacrificed their lives to save Kyouko's soul. What an horrendous burden to place on a child._

"I just wish I'da been there earlier and could a' saved Momo." This last was said almost in a whisper and silence filled the space afterwords until Mami chose to fill it.

"I can relate with that one," Mami finally added as she carefully replaced the apple she had been fingering back into the bag. Kyouko's last forlorn words resonated with one of Mami's deepest inner demons, something that perhaps might connect with her hurting friend.

"You know what I wished for," the older girl continued. "I wished to live when I was mortally wounded after a car accident. I've never hidden that. What I've never shared is that I think my mom was still been alive there at the end. She was a lot worse off than me, but I think she wasn't quite dead when Kyubey came to me. I realized after I got my soul gem the extent to which we can heal ourselves...me especially. I could have wished to save Mom, kind of like how Miki-san wished to heal that boy of hers, and then I could have healed myself."

Kyouko watched as Mami now fidgeted with her soul gem ring, the blonde girl's attention on her hand as she twirled the object and shared her own story of guilt. "By the time I had taken my soul gem to myself, pulled myself from the car, and went to check on my parents, she really was dead. Her injuries were beyond even my healing magic by then."

"She might really have already been dead, Mami. You're second guessin' yourself. You can't be sure you could have saved her, ya know," Kyouko assured her friend.

Mami raised her somber face to regard her student and best friend. "Any more than you can be sure that they wouldn't have died if you had been there that night? That your father wouldn't have done it some other night? Or that if you'd taken Momo away that something else wouldn't have gotten her? Once she saw you and wasn't under the influence of your parents, I have to believe she'd have contracted. You know how few of us survive even our first month. Even my teamwork idea doesn't seem to make a big difference given we're one for two with new girls, and that one remaining is sketchy as you say. If you manage to leave, I'll be alone again."

The older girl paused as she looked down again at her hand. "Kyouko, please don't leave me alone again. I don't think I could live through it this time, especially if there was no hope of you ever coming back."

"You never gave up hope I'd come back, did you?" Although she wasn't normally a touchy-feely person, Kyouko knew that even for her more open friend this moment, this admission, was terribly hard on the sensitive girl. She felt moved to place her hand on Mami's forearm, perhaps the most obvious show of vulnerability she'd displayed since her sister died.

"Never," Mami answered with certainty, looking up with shimmering pale eyes into the orange ones before her. "Every time you'd come back to pull me out of a tight spot I'd feel happy rather than annoyed or embarrassed like I suppose most in my position would have been. When Miki-san managed to anger you so much that you stayed just to spite her, I think that was the happiest moment of my life. Truth be told, I think my effort to bring girls together is less about fighting wraiths and more about giving us all a foundation of support. We all know despair and disappearance or death go hand-in-hand for us. I want to try and fix that."

"You really believe that, don't you?"

Mami nodded.

"I used to have faith like that. It didn't end well for me…or anyone else."

"Is this really so much a leap of faith, though?" Mami pursued. "Even if we fail, we're no worse than when we started. The Law of Cycles will eventually claim us whether we try or not."

"Sometimes you sound like my Father, ya know."

"I'm sorry, Sakura-san." Mami wilted, her mouth open looking stricken at the words.

"Don't be," Kyouko reassured her friend with her words and a shake of her head. "When you sound like him you sound like the righteous man I loved, not the derelict that killed Momo. Just don't forget disillusionment is all that stands between belief and despair, Mami. I'm worried when you fall, you'll fall hard like my Dad. I really don't want to have to live to see that."

"Disillusionment? I think that's the longest word I've ever heard you say, Sakura-san," Mami teased weakly, a small smile returning to her face and new hope lighting her eyes. "Since when did you become so eloquent?"

Kyouko glared at her mentor for the teasing, but the look in her eye wasn't really reproachful.

A thought occurred to Mami and her face became grave again. "If that happens that I do get disillusioned, though, I trust you'll stop me…before I hurt anybody like your father did?"

Kyouko simply nodded.

"So until then will you stay by my side, Sakura-san?"

Kyouko shrugged clearly not comfortable with the emotion of the moment. "I ain't got nothin' better to do, so why the Hell not. Anyway, I promised Homura's mom I'd watch after her sorry little kid. I ain't a liar and she IS payin' me, so I guess you're stuck with me."

"I can imagine worse fates." Mami shared a smile with her student, her eyes shimmering as she allowed her friend to see just how happy she was.

"Anyway," Kyouko began again, her expression becoming more irritated, although Mami had a feeling it was just Kyouko slipping back into her more comfortable devil-may-care attitude. "It's dark and we should be getting' back to Mitakihara. It'll be interestin' to see how well Homura's holdin' up on her own."

Mami's smile, although lessened, remained on her face. "By your choice of words I suspect like me you're less concerned about the wraiths and more about which Akemi-san we'll come back to."

"Something like…" Kyouko's answer was cut off by a faint voice in her head.

"…_anyone, help me!"_

Mami and Kyouko shared a look – they'd both heard it.

"…_so tired…"_

"Do you recognise her?" Kyouko whispered to her teammate as if speaking any louder might cause them to miss the voice if it returned. Of the team, Mami had by far the most contacts with other magical girls, so it was a logical question.

Mami simply shook her head, clearly concentrating to pick up any new hint of the other girl. She wasn't disappointed.

The voice was a little louder this time, probably due to slightly greater proximity. Both girls were certain the speaker had practically no magic left, her soul gem likely blackened, perhaps even on the verge of cracking. It sounded childlike, although with telepathy you could never be absolutely sure.

The voice sounded haunted, as if the speaker was truly losing all hope.

"_Please, I know you're close. I just hope you can hear this. Stop Kirika, you have to stop her and then make sure Oneesama and Okaasama are okay. Keep them safe! They're all that mat…Oh no!"_

The voice was cut off even as Mami and Kyouko, fully transformed and moving rapidly in the direction they sensed the voice was coming from, were bounding from the church through one of the large broken windows. Certain from the 'feel' of the voice that time was of the essence, the two traded magic for speed as they made to quickly cover the distance.

"_A magical girl is callin' for help, and she's worried for her loved ones more n' herself. There's no way you can fake how drained she is. That low, she should already be gone. She's fightin' for more than her life. Are you thinkin' what I think you're thinkin'?" _Kyouko grinned knowingly at her infamously meddling friend, her feet hitting the ground in time as they simultaneously took another great leap into the air.

Mami smiled back despite the gravity of the situation – the possibility of combat between puella magi, the single most dangerous and unpredictable situation imaginable. Nothing to go on other than the plea of a spent magical girl apparently fighting for something she held more dear than herself.

"_We're coming!"_ Mami called out as loudly as her magic and her passion would allow, focusing on the signature of the girl who had cried out in the hopes her assailant wouldn't hear it and be tipped off. _"Don't give up hope!"_

**/*/**

Moonlight streamed through broken windows upon a bag of apples, mostly but not completely drained, sitting forgotten on a bench in a deserted church.

As a breeze drifted through the open chamber, a swirl of leaves spun briefly around the bag and then traveled on and back out into the open air.

A child's voice whispered on the wind.

_Ganbatte, oneechan. Arigatou…_

* * *

**Journal Note**

Thoughts on variation across the timelines: Sakura Kyouko and Tomoe Mami  
Dr Fiona Graham, Ph.D.

"_I...I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her protecting me I want to become strong enough to protect her!"_

When ignorant and naive fourteen year old junior high student Akemi Homura made this wish and began our long journey, she really had no idea of the leap of faith it involved. At the time, our young hero visualized the universe in the very simple manner most human beings have since the dawn of time. Singular.

It's so easy, really. I was guilty of it for most of my life, until I availed myself of faculty privilege to pursue my masters degree in astrophysics and benefited from the concurrent numerous conversations with Méntoras. Just as our limited and conceited human perspective makes it so easy to see the Earth as the center of the solar system and the universe, not to mention flat, we think of time as being linear and alone.

In such a model, Homura expected she'd be a time traveler going back to bring about the specific outcome she so desperately desired. Going back only once I might add, despite her open ended words 'to become' which may well have been what damned both of us to the endless repetitions. She really was a hopeless romantic back then...in many ways still is. Homura today is the poster child for the saying, "A cynic is an optimist who has been given a stiff shot of reality."

The problem with such a singular view of the universe is that most scientists will tell you such a universe will likely not allow do-overs. What you are living now already takes into account time travel events even before you go back, if such travel backwards is even possible. Allowing time travel to make 'new' past changes in a singular universe by definition becomes bogged down in a snarl of paradox.

But there's a solution to paradox- elegant and simple. And by only the third iteration, Homura already had evidence this was the universe she lived in. The universe replicates itself...just like she did...over and over again. Rather than being faithfully monogamous, the cosmos is poly.

After her first return to the hospital bed in the morning of March 16, everything seemed the same as before. Homura was discharged from the hospital, took a taxi to the apartment since her mother was a non-presence, spent a week getting herself settled in her new home using her mom's "guilt card" – although this time she also spent that time timidly familiarizing herself with her new powers – and presented herself for her 8th grade of school on the morning of March 25. It was all basically identical to her first memories of the events other than the changes she brought to it. Most to the point- Madoka and Mami were the only magical girls in Mitakihara.

Her next go around was different. Not only was Homura much more proactive that time around given her new knowledge regarding the origin of witches, but when she presented herself to school on March 25th she found a fundamental difference – one which she had no role in producing. There were three mahou shoujo already attending Mitakihara Junior High School, not two. In this timeline, Kamijou Kyousuke met with a terrible accident resulting in nerve damage and the associated loss of dexterity that rendered him unable to play the violin. When Kyubey approached Madoka this time during the term break, Sayaka's karmic potential now also registered and not for the last time the alien achieved a two-fer. This was the first of a long line of data points which led Homura...and me...to realize things weren't as simple as Homura had intended with her wish.

Not long after the revelation of the second iteration, timeline three, came another data point. Sakura Kyouko, the girl who had before been in a tense stand-alone coexistance with the girls of Mitakihara, was now a team player. This time around, she and Mami managed to reach a detente that kept the two intensely dear friends in alliance if not always in agreement. When Madoka and then Sayaka contracted, they had two mentors and not just one. To my mind, this relatively early timeline was particularly tragic given the fierce affection that had developed between the two. Mami's choice to kill Kyouko first, once she realized the fate of magical girls, wasn't just recognition that the expert in sōjutsu was the most immediate threat. It was also a reflection of her deep love for her first pupil and the desire that Kyouko specifically never suffer becoming a witch.

Later timelines would bring even more compelling evidence of a universe that was different starting well before Homura appeared in the hospital bed. In Homura's own words to describe them- the "bizarre timelines." These 'bizarre' timelines became more and more common as the iterations stacked on each other...as the web Homura was forming, which only at the end we became aware of, began criss-crossing over itself. What caused the increasing variability over time has occupied many of my thoughts these past few weeks, and may someday be the subject of another entry if I can settle on any specific theories. I could fill an entire volume, and someday likely will, with what brought forth Oriko, or holy mother help me, the catastrophe that was the Pleiades Saints.

I thank whatever gods still listen to me for the providence that prevented Homura from EVER having met Nico Kanna. Given the dark paths Kirika caused this child to follow, I can only imagine what Homura would have done with the knowledge of THOSE unholy experiments.

But as my thesis adviser once told me I often do, I digress. Within just a few timelines, Homura had established she existed in a multiverse where instead of repeating the same events over within the same vessel, she was jumping to a set point in different but generally similar universes. She wasn't really a time traveler, although she would continue using the terms of time travel to the bitter end, rather she was a slider.

As profound as some of them appear in isolation, overall the changes between the timelines were extremely limited. From my own vantage point I can certify until the post-Madoka world such changes were limited to Japan and to events within three years of Homura's return to the hospital bed. Of the consistent variants, Kyouko and Sayaka were the most frequent variables. Madoka too, but only due to Homura's own interventions. Later on, Oriko and Kirika added themselves to the short list, and in fact showed the most unpredictable and inconsistent, often bordering on radical, variations. Nothing else significant happened more than once- thanks be to God.

I'll cover Sayaka and Oriko each later. This time I'm focusing on Kyouko. What elements contributed to the variation that was Sakura Kyouko...and necessarily Tomoe Mami?

Like Mami, everything up until Kyouko's wish was exactly identical across timelines. Her family dynamics, her passionate belief in her father and his faith, all of it. Like all the girls except for Madoka herself, and now Homura, her wish was word-for-word identical every time. Her initial optimism as a magical girl and the early alliance with similarly minded Tomoe Mami were identical, although the differences in Mami herself after wishing would always impact the younger and later-wishing Kyouko- the two friends cannot ever be viewed accurately in isolation.

The basis of variation for both Kyouko and Mami stems mainly from the events of their families' death and revolve mostly around guilt and loneliness. In those timelines where there is no doubt in Mami's mind about her mother, she comes out of the experience much more certain of herself, less likely to question or second guess. Similarly, in timelines where Kyouko's mother is dead when she returned home, the spear-wielder comes out of the experience colder and more adamant to do things her way, even if it means being on her own and the resulting pain it causes both her and her best friend. When Mami and Kyouko have confidence issues, they tend to stay closer to each other and find compromise. In timelines where they are inflexible, such as the one where Madoka made her Final Wish, both were so stubborn that Kyouko didn't bat an eye when Mami died or hold back when initially challenging Mami's new protege- Sayaka.

Kyouko is also impacted by Sayaka, but only near the swashbuckler's end...and only when Kyouko is drawn in enough for the two close-quarters fighters to interact substantially with each other. Mami is right to note how deeply Sayaka touched Kyouko's heart. Most of my own sense of the romantic has been lost to experience, but I'd like to think the bonds these two girls formed during their end in Madoka's final timeline among us perhaps played a role with their relationship in this one. Their affections this time around were reflexive in ways they never before had been. And none of it seems to take away from the much older and well established closeness between the original duo. Had Sayaka finally been able to resolve her issues over Kyousuke, I expect a very curious relationship would have developed between the three of them. Out of respect for their privacy, I'll refrain from saying more.

Ultimately, I am left to wonder if this post-Madoka universe developed the way it did, with some of the tightest friendships ever in Mitakihara, by accident or by Madoka's design. All the magical girl variables in this timeline have played out perfectly to produce an environment nurturing to Homura. Even the seemingly unfortunate loss of Sayaka has worked to solidify Kyouko's and Mami's resolve in the face of escalating adversity. Given the grave portents surrounding Homura, I'd like to think Madoka has done what She can do to help stack the deck for us. Heaven knows we'll need all the help we can get if we're to thread this needle.

* * *

*****Author's Note*****

**Lexicon**

_**Ganbatte** _= Good Luck/Do Your Best, generally informal unless kudasai added (Ganbatte kudasai, Please Do Your Best, is formal)  
_**Oneechan** _= sister, familiar form (usually older sister, generally used only for real family)  
_**Oneesama** _= sister, formal form (usually older sister, often used for honored older girls and not just a family relation)  
_**Okaasama** _= mother, formal form  
_**Arigatou** _= Thank you, informal form  
_**sōjutsu** _= spear arts

I should repeat myself that Fiona doesn't know everything. While she can be a great editorial mouthpiece, she is very much a character within the events. There are errors in her reasoning, and at least one of those errors made due to ignorance in her journal note is foreshadowing the end of Mother's Journey. So while I'll love to hear conjecture regarding her perspective, please don't assume apparent errors aren't intentional on my part to develop the story.

I'll also note again that my take on the characters and events of the Post-Madoka Universe is my own. If it's easier to think of this as an AU, that's fine. I just hope you find it no less enjoyable.

As always, I love feedback, either as a review or PM. I take these responses seriously and they can help guide me as I keep developing this story. While I certainly know how it all ends, how I get there is very much still an open question. So if you're so inclined, definitely let me know what you think!

**EDIT**: At the suggestion of a reviewer, I changed the story to a "T" rating. I guess there's a concern some people may not appreciate Kyouko's language... ;-)


	8. A Mother Flawed

**Conventions:**

Telepathy is a well established skill of magical girls and Incubators, and the humans who communicate with them. All thoughts, whether internal or broadcast, are in _italics_. To facilitate differentiation between internal dialog and thoughts meant for broadcast, those thoughts intended for sharing are in _"italicized quotations"_. Note, occasionally there are internal thoughts that are picked up or unintentionally broadcast. These will (hopefully) be identified clearly in the story.

As noted previously, internal dialog gets really challenging for Homura. For Homura, the convention adjusts to differentiate between 'soul fragments'. None of this is 'audible' to others.

{thought} is internal thinking by the new universe Homura.  
{"dialog'} is internal dialog from new universe Homura to old universe Homura  
[thought] is internal thinking by the old universe Homura.  
["dialog'] is internal dialog from old universe Homura to new universe Homura

* * *

Margin Note

I find it poignantly ironic that Akemi Homura would characterize the relationship between the Incubators and the puella magi as any less 'rocky' now than in her previous universe. The rats are just better at hiding their tracks...and my hands are far more covered in blood. If my daughters are aware of my actions since their passing - my complicity in utterly destroying what they worked so hard to build, bringing magical girls together in the wake of the worldwide violence of the mid-19th Century - I doubt even they could ever forgive me. I will certainly never forgive myself having lived through the victims the results of my collusion.

~F

**A Mother Flawed**

_Saturday, May 21  
__(a little over three weeks after Sagitta Luminis,  
__Cosmos Secundum ad Madoka)_

{"_You could have gotten me killed! Why did you completely ignore my bow? My flight? All the energies that came with my wish? Are you really that arrogant? That unwilling to admit I have something to contribute? Really, Homura, things are different now_."}

The Akemi Homura indigenous to the current timeline, the one whose wish had created the Homura soul gem of this universe and whose life experience had led to this moment, was incensed….no, furious in her frustration.

She was also, at the moment, still quite impotent. Her magic and her body wielded by a personality that, while still very much Homura, was driven by different experiences and motivations.

Not to mention a very different and now also quite frustrated wish.

The magical girl's first solo battle in this timeline, and the first with her time traveler aspect in the driver's seat, had been intense. Despite the veteran's repeated assurances that they were never in any real danger, the personality more experienced with wraiths than witches begged to differ. There was little doubt in her mind that luck more than skill had to do with their repeated narrow escapes during the unfamiliar, and for her unnatural, close-quarters combat fought while carefully economizing magical energy usage.

All this talk of 'creative weaponry' made for great philosophy, but during combat didn't it make sense to use the most powerful and familiar weapon available? Especially when energy was now so plentiful for Akemi Homura in this world? It all felt like an adult's typical condescending dismissal…and like any teenager she didn't like _that_ one bit.

Homura was now leaning against an undamaged shelving unit in the warehouse where moments before had existed a lightly populated yet surprisingly potent wraith grid. At the dark-haired girl's side, resting along her leg with the point against the concrete floor, was the sword with which she had dispatched the newly awakened nest of wraiths.

Although the grid and the apparitions it contained was now gone, the damage from the resulting fight was evident both around her and inside her. She could survey the damage around her – splintered crates and singed inventory resulting from those initial attacks on Homura that occurred on the 'real world' plane. Homura's body itself was undamaged, but as the veteran's next words confirmed, the internal wounds to the coherence of her soul were no less real than the more obvious outside destruction.

_["Akemi-san, I've been a magical girl four times as long as you've lived. Don't lecture me about how to fight. If staying alive is so important for you, then stop fighting me and let's get this whole ridiculous struggle over with. You're in over your head and this world of Madoka's doesn't have the luxury of you wasting time re-learning what I already know and would be glad to teach you if you'd just listen…or we'd get by default if you'd just get out of my way."]_

_{"Luxury? In who's way? Excuse me, but I'm the one who belongs here. Madoka be damned, this is _**my**_ universe and Mom in this one gave birth to _**me**_. My soul gem was created by _**my**_ wish, a wish I'll add that is actually still relevant given yours has no purpose anymore…kinda like you. I'm not going anywhere."}_

_["And you call _**me**_ a princess? Yes, you were born here. Yes, you have a mother who actually gives a damn about you and didn't throw you away like spoiled food. It's because of that you'll never be as strong as I am. I had to fight for everything I have. I didn't have it handed to me. As things stand now, there's no way I can entrust this world Madoka made to you. You present me with an obstacle, Akemi-san. Need I remind you how I approach obstacles?"] _

The younger Homura could come up with dozens of retorts to that statement, most of which would have the effect of a thermonuclear explosion on her psyche, a psyche which for better or worse was now irrevocably bound to the echoes of time spent…somewhere else.

She knew her time traveler self knew it, was essentially baiting her generally more impulsive self to cross that line and declare a war that, while it might resolve their current dissociative personality, would likely leave the resulting whole damaged beyond repair.

If she were able to, Homura would have taken a deep cleansing breath through the nose and out the mouth. She knew the action would do her other self even more good, but for the time being it wasn't to be. Despite her inexperience, the younger personality could see the situation needed to be de-escalated…and it was up to her to do it. Still, she refused to back down completely.

_{ She needs me, even if she's too pig-headed to see it. I swear she doesn't know what to do with herself in a universe where she has nothing driving her – nothing demanding her action. In every iteration she had an unrelenting itinerary to make sure nothing she'd learned in past timelines repeated itself. She always had only one thing to do: Get rid of those in her way. First kill Oriko and Kirika before Oriko even had a chance to detect her presence and before Kirika knew what hit her, then start restocking weapons and recharging her grief seed supply, then configure the apartment maze to hide her preparations, then start hunting Kyubey. Over and over…like the clockwork she decked out her maze with._

_But that's all behind us now. She needs to learn to let go.}_

Once again, young Homura wanted to sigh.

_{"You're right that I have a lot to learn. But until you get it through that thick head of yours that you do too, I'm not going anywhere. Yes, I need you, but dammit you need me too. We're going forward as partners. It's time you start meeting me somewhere in the middle."}_

Any reply to her impassioned response was cut off by the arrival of a new presence.

"_Homura? Are you alright?" _It was Kyubey, still at a distance but likely approaching fast.

_{"In here,"}_ the personality normally in charge called out.

_["He can't hear you any more than he can hear private thoughts. It's just like when our positions were reversed."]_ The currently dominant Homura's mental voice was muted, as if whispering in the ear of the passive one. It seemed meant to direct thought _at_ her rather than just to herself. It also appeared that it was particularly meant to not be broadcast to Kyubey.

_{"Neat trick_,} she quipped, hiding her irritation with the ease at which her other self seemed to pick up on things. {_"Are we going to switch back?"}_

_["No time. Don't worry, I'll be good to my word. You'll be back in control at the next private opportunity, even if it is irrational."]_

Once again, she chose not to take the bait. The more experienced girl's dismissive attitude stung though, and she resolved to demonstrate her abilities and hopefully earn a little respect from the veteran. That very night would provide such a chance. She'd be patrolling solo in the absence of her teammates, who were currently in nearby Kasamino City, probably taking a walk down Kyouko's memory lane.

Assuming she got her body back.

"Hello Kyubey," Homura said in neutral greeting as the alien slipped into the room. There was no open entrance, but that hardly mattered to an Incubator.

Surveying the scene as he walked, his fluffy white tail idly flipping from side to side, Kyubey came to regard Homura. _"This grid flared up and then was taken down in very short order. It appears you were in the right place at the right time."_

"It appears so," Homura replied noncommittally, her face still impassive as she pushed herself away from the shelving unit and stood unsupported on her own.

The alien's ears twitched and his tail swished in a manner which suggested curiosity if the creature's mannerisms held true from the previous universes. "_I'm curious what happened. You must have been right next to this building when the grid manifested – and I never sensed your bow." _

The creature's red eyes glanced at the sword in her hand.

Homura was still in her transformed state, although she had reflexively withdrawn her energies from the blade immediately after the grid had fallen. She was very thorough in reabsorbing her energies when they were no longer being applied, a trick which had saved her more times that she could remember, but she still suspected the creature could detect magical residue on it. Regardless, the recent purpose to which the object had been used was obvious simply by its presence in her hand.

"I wanted to try something new, Kyubey. That's all," Homura said with a shrug. "Kyouko-senpai keeps saying I should see things from her perspective when I use my ranged, area-effect attacks. When I slipped in here the swords on the wall made me think of her."

She brought the sword up in line between herself and Kyubey with her right hand and ran her left forefinger along the still polished blade. "I knew I could always fall back and use my bow if I had too." The gaze between them passed just above the horizontal edge as she alternated between examining its tempering and maintaining eye contact with the alien.

Homura paused a moment to allow Kyubey to absorb the initial answer, then let the sword-tip fall before she continued. "As for being in the right place at the right time... I guess I decided to walk a little farther tonight on a whim. It's been a busy day."

"_Anything in particular?_"

"Nothing new other than this." Homura gestured around her to indicate the warehouse.

_{She is smooth,}_ thought the silent personality, knowing it was best for now to just let her active self run with it. Despite her annoyance, she had to marvel at the show that sixty odd years of experience would allow her to perform.

Kyubey silently regarded Homura for several moments._ "I'm glad to see you expanding your repertoire, Homura. This was your first battle alone, and it was even done without me here. Your performance would have been impressive if you had used your natural magic. To have done it using a new technique and barely any magical energy is remarkable. Your potential becomes more intriguing every day."_

A shiver ran down Homura's spine as Kyubey communicated the last sentence, especially the word 'potential.' She had doubtless overplayed her hand with the katana. Experience at covering such things kicked in as reflex and she transformed back into her school uniform at that moment, obscuring the unconscious movement and the window into her thoughts it might provide.

"I just want to be helpful to Mami-senpai and Kyouko-senpai," Homura continued smoothly, using the school terms as befitted her uniform and the normal mannerisms of the girl who had contracted in this world.

Rather than continue the verbal cat-and-mouse game, Homura moved to collect her reward cubes. As had been predicted from a newly energized grid, the pickings were slim. Of the seven wraiths, only two had dropped a cube. One was inside the warehouse, the other was outside. She'd have to pick that one up as she made her way back to her apartment.

She retrieved the cube immediately available and made to leave the building the way she had come. Passing through the office, she picked up and made use of the fallen scabbard of the katana she had claimed at the start of the battle. Hopping onto the desk again, she collected the matching wakizashi before dropping down to pick up her school bag with her free hand. As the one hand was full carrying the two blades, she started to turn the knob with the one holding the bag.

_{"What about the alarm?"} _The younger Homura focused on the practical. She knew better than to question the veteran's decision to walk off with what were likely precious artifacts, at least to their owner. Homura had been an unrepentant burglar ever since her very first timeline after wishing, when she had first collected the materials necessary to make bombs that were far more complex than a simple Molotov Cocktail.

_["Doubtless the fight already set it off – if the system is even functional, which I doubt. Still, I suppose it can't hurt to be cautious."]_ Applying a bit of magic again to the door allowed her and Kyubey free passage.

"_You're taking the swords with you?"_ Kyubey asked, clearly more curious than concerned.

"I've keyed the katana already to my magic, so it'll be easier next time," Homura said as she made her way outside. "I thought I might show Kyouko-senpai what I can do now."

_["You've seen how I did it, Akemi-san,} _the whispering continued in her mind_. {Try repeating the steps when you have time to experiment. And don't get discouraged if it doesn't come easily. Bullets and arrows are piercing weapons. Slashing weapons were the hardest for me to grasp and never really came naturally. With two contracts to trend with, I think piercing weapons might just be the 'Homura Style.' That said, you should get used to making anything at hand a weapon. If you're boxed in too tight to use a bow, you're probably in too tight to take flight or run, either. As you reminded me earlier, you can't stop time. You should become proficient with a close-combat weapon."]_

_{"So you've accepted I'm not going to roll over and die for you?"}_

_["I'm remembering the importance of patience."]_

The younger Homura decided not to let her relief become apparent, nor to make any remark that could be interpreted as an 'I told you so.' Still, any sign of movement on the part of the time traveler was welcome.

Circling the building to grab the remaining cube, Homura also infused magic through her gem ring and out into the surrounding city to confirm the immediate area as clear of further wraith activity. She focused her attention, although not her magic – that would have given something away to Kyubey she didn't want known – in the direction of the Kaname household. All was quiet and unremarkable, so she dropped her scan.

_["Akemi-san, when I give you back control I only ask that you keep a close watch on them."] _She paused for a moment. _["…Please."]_

She felt no special connection to the Kaname family other than the events of the afternoon, but nevertheless the indigenous Homura didn't hesitate to give her assurances on the matter.

_{"Absolutely, Homura. I was serious when I said I would like to see Junko-san and Mom together sometime."}_

Relaxing slightly, Homura directed her attention back to the cat-like creature beside her. "So Kyubey, this area seems clear of miasma eddies now, but I get the sense there's a lot of miasma in general flowing through the city tonight." Homura struck out in the most direct route home as she waited to hear what Kyubey would have to say.

"_The miasma seems particularly thick tonight," _the alien answered,_ "unusually so, but more in the commercial sections closer to the harbor. There is already significant wraith activity, involving multiple grids. The concentration is large enough to draw out diffuse miasma from the outlying residential sections such as here, leaving the latter quiet."_

To the only audience she had, the passive Homura remarked,_ {"Like a powerful typhoon that sucks the moist heat from the surrounding area and makes it impossible for any other storm to form around it."}_

_["Sounds like it, doesn't it? Are you sure you don't want me to handle the rest of the night, Akemi-san? No one could fault you for not wanting a night like tonight as your first solo experience. I didn't fight a fully established witch by myself until Tomoe-san and later Sakura-san had practiced me on familiars and weaker witches. Even then they were waiting outside the maze in case I needed rescue."]_

_{"Not a chance, Homura. I want my body back. I've had great training and you can always give me tips now that we're on speaking terms. Assuming you'll still deign to talk to me when you're back in here."}_

_["That depends on if you are worth talking to."]_

Transforming due to the urgency to get on patrol, she encouraged Kyubey to ride on her shoulders; her speed was much increased as she bounded along rooftops.

_{"Would you like me to show you how to draw on your wings?"}_

_["Eventually, perhaps, but we're almost there. It's not that far."]_

Once again the passive Homura was left shaking her proverbial head at the other's avoidance toward learning their indigenous magic – her magic, and therefore hard not to take it a little personally when it was disregarded even if each explanation made sense. _{It's seems neurotic, her unwillingness to rely on anyone but herself. Then again, I've seen what happened to make her this way. Given what we've heard of the lives of magical girls elsewhere, it'd be my life even here. Only just now have I gotten a taste of fighting wraiths by myself. I can't imagine living like that, all by myself, yet it's the norm for most girls.} _

A thought struck her._ {I can see now why Mami's so passionate about this idea of hers; forming a team with open membership. She keeps talking about spreading it out, but Kyubey refuses to help and keeps advising her against looking beyond Aichi Prefecture. I wonder why?}_

The thoughts were interrupted by their arrival at the apartment. Knowing time was short, Homura quickly placed her bag and the two swords in the bedroom and then stopped by the bathroom door. Turning her head to consider Kyubey, who still rested on her shoulders, she said impatiently, "Do you mind?"

"_It seems like an odd time to be attending to such things, Homura. You can relieve urinary bladder contents with magic."_

"Tomoe-senpai keeps telling me not to use magic to handle routine biological functions unless I'm in a battle. It'll take me less time to deal with this than it will to argue with you."

Kyubey hopped off Homura's shoulders and started making his way to the front room. _"I will never understand you humans."_

_[{"We like it that way."}]_ Both Homura's thought privately to each other at the same moment.

_{"Jinx! Owe me a soda!"}_

Homura found herself smiling slightly as she closed the bathroom door and manifested her egg-shaped soul gem, fleeing into it immediately and allowing the original contractor to reassert her control over her body.

"Made you smile!" the raven haired girl repeated quietly, with a widening grin. "It's so good to be home," she said, finding herself stretching in much the same way her other self had done when she first took control_. {"I wonder if stretching is a reflex or something inherent in taking the body back?"}_

_["I don't think so. It certainly wouldn't be healthy given most of the time you'd be taking control back in middle of a desperate battle after having drained your magic to regenerate a devastated body. I'm not exactly sure why I did it, or why you're driven to do it, but all the others I saw retake their bodies in the other timelines didn't stretch like this."]_

_{"Hmmm, curious. Anyway, good to know we're still on speaking terms."}_

With that Homura, who didn't really need to use the facilities having last relieved herself only a few hours ago after dinner, flushed anyway and then made her way out to rejoin Kyubey and take on the monsters that filled her home town.

**/*/**

_{They know I'm alone here tonight.}_

Homura wondered when she'd actually get to rest for a bit, heal her wounds, and clear her uncharacteristically sullied soul gem- the first time since she contracted in this world that it had noticeably dimmed.

The past hour had been rough and there was a long night left yet. Kyouko and Mami remained out of Kyubey's range, and as such Homura didn't even have a sense of whether she would get a reprieve tonight or not.

Not for the first time today, she wondered just how intelligent the wraiths were.

_{Intelligent enough to know I'm vulnerable.}_

The most recent fight had been hard fought. The wraiths were more plentiful than she'd previously experienced or had ever imagined possible. It chilled her to realize that she could have lost; something only prolific use of magic had prevented and even then she'd had far too many close calls for comfort. She sported many cuts and burns she didn't feel needed healing just now. By rights she should have experienced far worse. Only the luxury of her access to unprecedented magical stores kept her still standing.

But her darkening soul gem was evidence that even her power might not be limitless. It was a startling realization.

She was struggling, but she steadfastly refused to hand the reins back over to her other self. She knew in her heart that to do so was tantamount to giving up, an admission that the Homura which this world had brought forth was unable to protect it herself. She wouldn't accept that.

Couldn't accept it.

Instead, she considered her newest challenge. The wraiths had formed a grid in one of the seediest portions of the commercial district, a place awash in their emotional fuel.

While at first glance it didn't seem like a particularly potent grid, especially given what she'd already encountered tonight, it was extremely well provisioned for the bizarre things and that made her wary. She suspected too that she'd again see a troubling technique that had played out consistently tonight. The wraiths would never concentrate in groups, despite their energies when together being more than the sum of the individuals.

The approach made it difficult to use her area-effect firepower to take out more than one or two wraiths at a time. It was vexing and something she'd never encountered before for some reason.

_["You're missing your sheepdog,"] _the presence in the back of her mind explained cryptically.

_{"My what? And wait a second, you could hear me?"}_

_["You were thinking openly. I assumed you wanted me to hear it and I chose this time to respond."]_

_{"Oh."}_

_["As far as my comment, you're missing Sakura-san. The fact you never realized it just confirms my worries about you."]_

_{"I'm really not in the mood and I'm definitely not giving you back the keys. What about Kyouko? After all her complaining about range fighters and especially explosions, I thought not having her in the way of my attacks would actually be helpful."}_

The other presence remained stubbornly silent, apparently refusing to explain her useless comments further. _{"Passive-aggressive much? Next time don't lecture me."}_

Homura's thoughts were interrupted by Kyubey, who was again sitting on her shoulders considering the same grid._ "As much as I would like to see these wraiths destroyed, I don't think you can succeed in fighting this grid, Homura. I would suggest leaving it and finding a more modest target. There remain an unusual number of wraiths outside grids nearby right now, and another more manageable grid to choose from within my sensory range."_

"Not you too, Kyubey!" the beleaguered girl said in exasperation before she caught herself. She closed her violet eyes and offered up a silent prayer the alien hadn't caught her error.

"_Who else is there, Homura?"_

_{Damn!}_

She dove into the grid before she could dig herself any deeper or have second thoughts, slipping quickly to the level where she sensed those poor souls who had been drawn into the grid currently resided.

**/*/**

_{"You're just going to abandon them?"}_

She had been right to be wary. The battle in the grid had been a disaster.

It also apparently was a trap, although that couldn't be proven for certain.

When she entered the grid, as expected there were only perhaps a dozen wraiths lurking in the entire structure. Despite the staggering energies of grief and despair they could draw on from brothels, bars, and gambling dens, the manageable number meant Homura should have come out on top with only moderate strain.

Instead, as she made her way through the initial denizens of the grid, more began arriving. It was as if the grid had been bait. When she fell for it, reinforcements began pouring in from every quarter. The sheer numbers of wraiths provided more effective targets for her exploding arrow technique, but those numbers also wore her down.

In the end, she'd had to make a choice. Principle and pride, or expediency and continued existence. She'd gone with the latter and handed the reins back to her veteran self, although she knew she'd regret it once the crisis was over.

_["No, Akemi-san. I intend to skirmish. Now show me how to draw up your bow."]_

Bolting from the grid as soon as the transition had taken place, Homura had left Kyubey and dozens of humans seemingly to their fates. The indigenous personality had been disappointed to see the action, but not really surprised. _{She never cared about protecting anyone but Madoka before, and now she only cares about Madoka's world as a whole.}_

Despite her current misery, the younger Homura was still curious. She continued the conversation even as she guided the veteran through connecting to wish magic that was hers yet not hers, the result of an alien wish she had made yet not made. _{"Skirmish?"}_

_["Yes, Akemi-san. Skirmish. Without Sakura-san as a shepherd to collect the wraiths together, we can't win in the grid. But given our current vulnerability, and assuming we're right about that being a trap, if we leave they'll follow us in the hope of finishing us off."]_

Despite her inability to direct her magic, she could still sense it. The now passive Homura took stock of her magic supplies as she felt her bow manifest from those stores. She would have shivered had she been able to as she recognized how little remained.

_{"I _am_ vulnerable. I've…never been this low before."} _Homura expected a chiding for her previous cavalier attitude about energy usage, but it never manifested.

_["So we fight without wasting any magic at all. We make every bit count."]_

As the tactician had predicted, the wraiths from the now former grid were in pursuit.

Rather than stop and fight, however, Homura maintained her distance and never allowed herself to be pinned down. She used speed and distance to her advantage; that and the fact that wraiths were far less powerful individually and outside a grid, inside of which their power seemed exponentially greater.

She drew the creatures away from the center of town where the energies had been gathering, further starving the creatures of power. At the same time she was making slow progress in the direction of Kasamino City, an action not lost on the indigenous personality.

_{"If we're running to Mami and Kyouko, we can make much faster speed in the air. I've never seen wraiths fly, so we'd probably be safe."}_

_["That would be my first option, but you've made it abundantly clear that you subscribe to Tomoe-san's idealism. If we take to the air to flee, we'll be leaving the humans back there to their fate."]_

_{"Oh."}_

_["That said, the air is a superb place to find advantage against ground-based targets. If you think the tradeoff in magic is worth it, I'm willing to try it."]_

_{"If we can use being in the air to avoid fire and making barriers, and if we can take them out faster, it'll be at least even if not an improvement."}_

_["Then lead on."]_

**/*/**

It took a while, and Homura's magic stores were dangerously low by the time the last wraith in immediate pursuit was dispatched, but in the end only Homura remained standing. Or rather she remained suspended in mid-air considering the glow of the City of Mitakihara below her.

_{"We need to renew ourselves right now. We've got nothing left."}_

Homura nodded as she looked around herself, eyeing likely candidates to perch safely for a time. _["I agree it would be a good idea to clear our gem, but we'll remain vulnerable wherever we are. Do you think we'll be left alone in the scaffolding and cranes of one of the new high rises?"]_

During the fight the indigenous Homura had watched as her veteran self had deftly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

Her defeat…due in large measure she recognised to her own hubris.

And yet here she was asking her advice, as she had ever since taking control. Not only asking, but heeding it. Valuing it. It perplexed the fourteen year old girl no end, but she was determined to do her best by the aspect of Homura that had saved the day…and her existence.

_{"I'd like to think so. I think the wraiths are disordered after this plan, or whatever it was, failed. I think we have some time. I hope so at least. We'll know when they start sniping at us."}_

Homura swooped to a long beam she'd been eyeing overhanging the streets far below. She descended gracefully, alighting on the end of the narrow slip of steel as if she did it all the time. Her wings dissolved into mist around her as soon as they became irrelevant and she drew back to herself every scrap of magic still recoverable.

_{"Show off."}_

The Homura with decades of experience improvising, borrowing, and stealing magic didn't respond. Instead she immediately got down to business, given there was no certainty she'd be left alone for long no matter how high up her perch.

She sat herself with her feet dangling over the edge, unconcerned with her precarious position perhaps three hundred meters above the cityscape below. Allowing her soul gem to drop from her wrist into her other hand, she set the flat object down on the surface next to her. A crumb of magic ensured it stayed there.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out most of her reserve, perhaps a dozen little cubes, and arrayed them around her gem in the design that the Homura born to this way of clearing soul taint was partial to. Homura had noticed each girl tended to select a specific design unique to them, and never varied from it other than to adjust the number of cubes needed for the taint involved. She was far too tired now to investigate what that might mean.

Wraiths collecting at the base of the building soon caught her attention. After a few sniping attempts by the creatures were deflected by barriers and met with her bow, their tactics changed and they formed a grid and disappeared into it. She could sense their energies growing. Although uncertain now of their intentions, she expected that energy would be particularly troublesome for her – or the building she sat atop – in perhaps fifteen minutes. Until then, she had her reprieve.

"_I am relieved to see that you survived this experience, Akemi Homura."_

Homura turned her head to watch as Kyubey appeared out from the shadow of the scaffolding behind her.

"_I am intrigued by your sudden change of tactics, although I must commend you on their success."_

Homura was suddenly wary of the alien, sensing he was aware of more than she would have liked. She'd already overplayed her hand once this evening. She knew now to be more cautious.

_{"I don't like this,"}_ the passive Homura started to say.

_["Shhh, I need to focus. Please."]_

That last word surprised the indigenous Homura, but she found herself unable to ponder the ramifications as her voice began engaging Kyubey in another cat-and-mouse game.

"Are we in danger of wraiths up here, Kyubey?" Homura enquired, both as a practical question as well as hoping to redirect the conversation.

"_Eventually, most certainly. They are collecting below even now; gathering energies as I am sure you know. That said, I don't believe they will follow you up here in the time it will take for you to clear your soul gem…or for you to explain some things to me."_

"What things?" The pleasant night breeze gently swaying her long hair only served to chill her. She fought another shiver by turning her head forward again, not bothering to continue facing the alien.

"_The personality fragment currently in control, the one I am speaking with, isn't the primary one. I watched you briefly flee your body before you fled the last grid. You're displaying active energies of the type that I felt after the battle where Miki Sayaka was lost, and again several times since, most specifically during the time your body was under the influence of human drugs and you chose not to clear them."_

The bright lights of the greater Mitakihara area shone to rival the brilliant full moon above. Homura looked out over the sparkling cityscape and didn't respond to the bait.

"_I thought so. I would be interested to understand your motivations. Do you understand why Akemi Homura's personality is fragmenting as it is, and why her power and potential is increasing after her wish in direct conflict with the laws we've always understood guided such things?"_

Homura looked down to her side, considering her slowly recovering soul gem. It would be at least another five minutes, probably more, before it was done clearing. Kyubey had already divined much and her avenues for deflection seemed limited. Her mind churned, desperate to avoid the creature's curiosity.

_["It seems so inefficient, this cube business. It took mere moments to clear nearly black soul gems with a grief seed. These cubes take forever, and it takes so many of them. Why is that?"]_

_{"You know I don't have an answer to that. I also know you can't hide from him anymore. I can't help you now, but you know that as well."}_

_["I know. I'm cornered. If I say nothing, I'll just make him more suspicious. We've held on to Madoka's last wish and still I don't want him to know about it. But I may as well share the rest since he's heard snippets of it all anyway. Are you prepared for that, since he'll certainly have another talk with you later?"]_

_{"I think so. I may not be the fighter you are as we demonstrated tonight, but I think I've shown I can handle a round or two at verbal fencing. Anyway, I know you've got my back."}_

Homura smiled ever so slightly as the two personalities shared a new sensation – solidarity. It was an alien sensation to the veteran who had for so long eschewed companionship. She knew now wasn't the time to dwell on it. Kyubey was waiting expectantly for her response.

"I'm from another timeline, a different universe. I was in an impossible situation and I wished to get out of it…and in the end found myself here."

"_I see." _

Homura could have turned again to watch Kyubey, but other than curiosity she had never been able to read much in the creature's posture or expression, so she chose to maintain her focus on the blackness flowing from her soul.

"_Achieving such a wish would take phenomenally potent karma, although certainly for you it seems plausible. It also fits your previous comments to Kyouko and Mami. That said, you've suggested it happened more than once."_

"I wished to protect a friend by going back in time to before she died and save her. I'd wake up in my hospital bed each time at the same moment and get another chance to save her. Every time she'd either die or became a witch."

"_How many times did you repeat this process?"_

"A few."

Kyubey took a while to respond and Homura held out some hope that the inquisition was done, at least for now. She wasn't so lucky.

"_You've mentioned witches before. What are they?"_

Kyubey had thought about the question and so Homura thought about her answer. "In the universes I traveled before this one, when magical girls despaired to the point their soul gems cracked, they became something called grief seeds. They were no longer magical girls bringing hope, they became witches full of curses."

She'd lived so many years dealing with them, explaining witches came naturally to her. As she spoke, she noted some of the renewal cubes were absorbing taint faster than the others. She idly shifted the slower cubes around a bit to see if she could affect the rate of absorption and get herself away from Kyubey's questions that much faster.

"The good a girl's soul gem did would be offset by her grief seed, karma evening itself out but in the process releasing phenomenal energies. Magical girls would then fight the witches and destroy them, and eventually in the process become one. A cycle that perpetuated itself ever since the Incubators came to the Earth."

Anticipating the creature's next question, Homura chose to head it off before she needed to straight-out lie. She suspected that, like her, the aliens knew more than they were interested in sharing. She'd place the onus on them. "I must admit the genesis of wraiths and the fate of magical girls in this universe is a lot more mysterious. You wouldn't happen to know anything more about it that you're not telling us, would you Kyubey?"

The silence before Kyubey continued was palpable._ "If all is as you say, how did you end up here?"_

_[Good question. Given where I followed Madoka, how _**did**_ I end up here?]_

"In the timeline before this one, I told my friend all that was happening. Despite my protests, her wish that time was to change my fate and it kicked me here, where she doesn't exist, I have different magic, and the rules for magical girls are different."

"_This friend was Madoka?"_

Homura simply looked out somberly over the city from high above.

"_I see. Theoretically, I suppose the system you described could have worked."_

"It isn't theoretical. It was real." She noted taint was no longer flowing to one of the cubes she had shifted around. Resolving to investigate soul gem renewal later, she picked up and considered the spent cube before tossing it over her shoulder in Kyubey's direction, not bothering to look back to see if the creature caught it. She knew from previous experience Kyubey made pro outfielders look like circus clowns.

"_Even so, we have no way of proving it. If the laws of the universe really worked the way you say they did, there's no method we could use to verify that. And since you're the only one who remembers that world, there's no way to tell if your memories are real or just a fairytale you just imagined."_

Glad for Kyubey to be doing the talking now, Homura picked up another spent cube and tossed it back. She took heart in her now brilliant gem. It wouldn't be much longer, and she could feel her own mood significantly lightened for the removal of the taint. She found herself enjoying the moment again- the sensation of being alive, her body responding to her commands, even the wind in her face and flowing through her hair.

"_It is true we can't explain why soul gems shatter when they become too sullied. That witch concept you've described is quite interesting. As a means of collecting human emotional energy, it certainly has its appeal. If such a lucrative means of harvesting energy had been available to us, we Incubators might have employed a very different strategy for all this."_

_["Which begs the question of what exactly _**is**_ their strategy in this universe. We still don't know that and I'm not willing to let him know I'm curious or that I don't already have it figured out."]_

_{"Isn't it possible they're more or less transparent in my universe? Maybe Madoka made the Incubators really care."}_

_["I can't buy that, Akemi-san. They're still making human girls their gladiators in some horrible coliseum game, with the eventual outcome no less assured than it was two thousand years ago. And this world is still going to Hell."]_

Homura turned her face to look at Kyubey still sitting behind her, seemingly harmless as a cat plushie. Homura knew better. Only a month ago in her memories this creature had used words to stick a knife in her gut and twist it. He'd manipulated events yet again to bring Madoka to wish, to cause the promise to her best friend to yet again be broken – this time forever. Homura's promise made just before she had pulled the trigger and murdered Madoka now could never be fulfilled.

It didn't matter that her friend had become some kind of god. Had created a new reality. Had saved all the magical girls from despair. Had become Hope itself.

She would _never_ forget her failure.

She would _never_ forgive this beast…

…or herself.

_[A different strategy? That's what you call it?]_

Aloud, she simply said, "Of course. That's the sort of creatures you are, after all…"

"_But in that witch world you were describing, there weren't any wraiths like the ones we fight here, right? So collecting curses must have been a much faster process!"_

_[Faster?]_

Her pulse raced and her body tensed as her fury at the deceptive creature rose to a boil.

_{"Homura, I don't know what you're thinking but you're seething. I can imagine what's passing through your mind, but killing Kyubey won't do anything. Let's just start moving again and we'll sort it out later. Our gem's clear if you haven't noticed. Don't do something to show your hand. He's baiting you."}_

Homura turned her face away from the alien and closed her eyes as she strove to calm herself.

_["Is this what you mean when you say I need you as much as you need me?"]_

_{"Kinda."}_

_["Thank you, Akemi-san."]_

She responded, feeling a little calmer, although she couldn't let the blithe observation stand. "It wasn't that simple. And our relationship with you was fairly rocky as well."

"_I guess it really is impossible to understand human values."_

_{["You got that right."]}_

Spontaneously grabbing all the remaining spent cubes, Homura tossed them together over her shoulder at the alien. She retrieved her soul gem and reaffixed it securely to her wrist, again not bothering to see how the creature managed to catch them all.

Standing, Homura looked out one last time over the city from her chosen perch. She could sense the grid below was reaching a critical stage. If she waited any longer, it might become a serious challenge to her, even refreshed as she was.

Kyubey scampered onto her shoulders. _"The miasma is thick tonight. Honestly, these wraiths just keep on coming! No matter how many we beat, there's no end to it."_

_{"No kidding. He's not the one who got his ass handed to him. Why did they all have to come out of the woodwork on my first solo night?"} _

It was a rhetorical question and the feelings infusing the words were more petulant than angry. She was simply reacting like the fourteen year old girl she was, frustrated at her inexperience. There was little the veteran could say that would be helpful. Still, the girl needed to be reminded that the first response to being knocked down is usually to get back up.

"Your complaining isn't going to help," Homura answered, efficiently addressing the sentiments of two audiences with her sparse words. "Come on, let's go."

Taking a single step, Homura fell the length of over three football fields to the ground. The drop was exhilarating. As she approached the ground she drew out her wings briefly, just long enough to break her fall. They dissolved again with almost no energy lost in the action as she reabsorbed it, and what was lost she deftly redirected to allow her to slip immediately into the layer of the grid where she sensed the most wraith presence.

The layer was close to the real-world plane and showed little difference from it despite being completely separate. As wraiths manifested around her, or more accurately she manifested among the wraiths, she drew on her bow which appeared in her hands, an arrow already nocked.

_[I will protect this world, be it from wraiths, Incubators, or whatever else threatens it. I'll never be able to keep my promise to Madoka now, but I can protect her world. I remember you Madoka, even if no one else but your brother does. I'll never forget you. I'll keep fighting until we meet again.]_

Given her mood, the wraiths never stood a chance.

**/*/**

"…_anyone, help me!" _

Homura had been methodically retracing her steps back to the red light district, collecting the cubes she had abandoned earlier as well as ensuring that wraiths weren't still terrorizing the humans back there. She was pleased to discover all was quiet.

It appeared she had at a minimum made a severe dent in the wraith population that night. There were no more grids. The remaining wraiths had apparently determined, probably accurately, that their best defense now was in diffusion. She was only one girl and could only be one place at a time.

Still, there were wraiths and the night was still young. As long as there were wraiths, answering the nagging question within Homura could be postponed.

Who gets the keys now?

Her senses extended to the limit of her magic, the veteran Homura was trying some techniques she had used to scan for witch mazes from distances most thought impossible. Along with those techniques came a greater awareness of broadcasted telepathy.

"…_so tired…"_

_[I know that voice._]

It nagged at her. She knew it was there on the tip of her mind, but she couldn't quite place it.

_{"That's one exhausted girl. I think she has less magic left than we had an hour ago. Can you tell where she is? She needs help."}_

_["I think she's to the west."]_

_{"Kasamino City? That's not Mami or Kyouko, though. Are they okay?"}_

"Kyubey, are you hearing that?"

"_That?"_

"A distressed magical girl. I think it's coming from the direction of Kasamino City, but it isn't Mami or Kyouko."

"_I'm surprised you can sense it, Homura. That's the newest girl to make a contract. Likely to be one of the shortest lived puella magi as things stand now."_

"I wonder if Mami is hearing this? Who is she and just what is she fighting?"

"_Her name is Chitose Yuma and she's fighting another puella magi."_

"Chitose Yuma…" Realization struck Homura like a two-by-four to the head. She had known Yuma just once. Their time together had been brief, although the child's impact on her had been profound. It had been among the most traumatic of the timelines, and it had forever changed the course of Homura's life. Because of that one, the line between magical girl and witch had become blurred for Homura…both magically and morally. After that, she had killed two girls every single time, like clockwork. Her routine action had saved Madoka from ever dying again at their hands.

The voice returned, its haunted tone now unmistakable. There could be little doubt the speaker had almost lost hope.

"_Please, I know you're close. I just hope you can hear this. Stop Kirika, you have to stop her and then make sure Oneesama and Okaasama are okay. They're all that mat…Oh no!"_

_**[Kirika? ORIKO!]**_

Leaving a surprised and ever more curious Kyubey on the ground, an enraged Homura burst into the air, not caring she was burning magic in her haste to reach the target of her fury.

_{"Homura, we don't…"}_

_["Shut up! Don't you _**dare**_ interfere!"]_

The Homura for whom wings were a natural skill reluctantly did as she was ordered, but despite her growing apprehension she had to marvel, even now, at how adept the veteran was with her magic. She would never have managed such speed from her flight, and certainly not with such efficient use of magic even as she traded magic for speed.

As they streaked over Kasamino City, Homura caught signs the battle had grown beyond just a nutcase and an exhausted little girl.

"_Tiro Finale_!" Mami's signature attack flashed into the sky, her mentor's mental voice carrying much further than her spoken one. She could see the battle continue, though, as Kyouko's red magic lit up the area somewhat less spectacularly; doubtless the spear wielder was covering her musketeer friend as she recovered from firing her big gun.

_["Don't get involved in this, Akemi-san. Someone's about to die and I'm about to deal it out. As you rightly pointed out, you're not the murderer here. I am. If you want to keep your blissful innocence, it's time to look the other way."]_

_{"I'll be here when you need me, Homura. I won't let you get lost. I promise."}_

The veteran was so focused on making quick progress and preparing for the upcoming fight that she didn't catch the quiet words or the deep sadness that accompanied them.

* * *

Journal Note  
Thoughts on the Incubators  
Dr. Fiona Graham, Ph.D.

About five years ago, at the end of the last decade, one of my anthropology graduate students convinced me to accompany her and a group of other girls for an evening out that included a viewing of the latest hit movie. I'm really not much of a movie buff. I mean honestly, I have real drama straight out of any genre you care to mention playing out in my head. The last thing I need is to invite someone's imagination in there as well. Then there's the time challenge of keeping up with the Chronicles despite the help of my clever little alien recorder. But loneliness won out and I went.

I am left to wonder if the writer somehow had a conversation with an Incubator when he developed the idea of his storyline. I can't identify a wish that would have influenced him, although I know better than anyone that wishes can have far-reaching and unintended consequences. I know he wasn't approached in the presence of a magical girl, but I'd never know if an Incubator had played a role separate from one of the girls. It wouldn't be the first time an alien has interacted directly with a human, as my own existence attests. It wouldn't even be the first time an alien interacted with a male, although that's rare enough.

Despite my eidetic memory, I have no idea five hundred years from now just where this movie will sit in my mind. I certainly can't expect any future audience reading this to be familiar with a 2010 science fiction release from Hollywood, so I'll summarize the salient point. The movie envisions humans interacting with the capstone species of another planet, a planet toxic to human biology, through the use of remote bodies pleasing to the natives. In that case, the bodies were the same as the indigenous peoples, in fact having been derived from their genetics.

The reality is somewhat different, but near enough to be eerily familiar.

Like those appearing in the movie, the bodies wielded by the Incubators are a construct developed specifically for their mission on Earth. In fact, their appearance has not been static, rather evolving over time based on the prevailing sensibilities of young girls.

The first Incubators appeared as human-looking girls who befriended their contractees. Later on, as humans domesticated animals, most particularly dogs, the aliens adjusted their appearance to pleasing animal shapes initially appearing more canine and eventually morphing into the currently more feline appearance that has been prevalent the past 6,000 years as the mythology of Egypt and China will attest.

Their efforts to cater to their target audience would put any 21st Century marketing executive to shame. At each stage, their goal in choosing a form was the same - to be attractive, trustworthy, and non-threatening to pre- and peri-pubescent girls while also facilitating wish-granting and providing for safekeeping of precious spent grief seeds or, alternately, renewal cubes.

This, of course, begs the question. Who is the man behind the curtain? What is the driving animus for the cuddly plushie?

The answer, it appears, is that depends.

Most Incubators on Earth are members of a gestalt, a collective, which was developed like their bodies for the mission to this planet. They have no animus behind them; rather they are the totality of their membership. Any one Kyubey speaks for all of them, as they are one being – as evidenced by the Kyubey befriending Madoka and Homura claiming personal success each time Madoka became a world-destroying Gretchen near the end as Madoka's karma compounded. The Kyubey of Japan, including all the ones Homura dealt with, are members of this gestalt. The Kyubey are ultimately in charge of the Earth Operation and account for all contracts here.

But there are others. As Kyubey has noted many times to magical girls like Homura capable of understanding the concept, emotions of the type and intensity experienced by humanity are not common beyond our kind. As such, we are not only a generator for universal salvation, we're also a curiosity. And like any curiosity, we attract notice from curious beings. In our case, alien anthropologists.

Reminiscent of the movie, these alien anthropologists interact with notable magical girls just like human anthropologists when we carefully slip into an isolated culture in some remote jungle or island. They practice strict non-interference – in fact and not merely in theory, unlike Kyubey and his incessant meddling – but as individuals with experiences beyond the Earth Operation they are better conversationalists.

They also tend to become partial to their hosts. It's little wonder that most of the longest-surviving puella magi throughout history have been befriended, if you can call it that, by these individuals rather than members of the gestalt.

A notable example of this is the epic Greek puella magi princess turned wandering bard Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaecian people of the island of Scheria (modern day Sicily) and her companion Méntoras. Many humans even know about her - just read _The Odyssey_ sometime. The two of them journeyed throughout the Mediterranean during Nausicaa's phenomenal nearly twenty centuries of life. Much of what little I know about the Incubators and life beyond human settled worlds comes from the campfire chats between those two, as well as the conversations I've personally had the pleasure of sharing with Méntoras.

Still, as sympathetic as Méntoras might be, she's even more cagey than Kyubey on specifics. I have lived over 400 years in each of two very different lifetimes, and I have within me the experiences as magical girls of multitudes of puella magi – both before and after Madoka's revisions. You'd think with all the interactions contained in these memories that I'd feel at least mildly confident I understand what motivates the aliens who have helped mold human development since we set our sights beyond East Africa.

Not really.

I think perhaps there was one magical girl who broke through the alien code of silence, but my own curse specifically excludes my younger daughter as a result of the wording of her own wish. I must chronicle 'every magical girl born before or after' her. Audrey was too clever for her own good, and unfortunately all she learned died with her. I am left to wonder if her knowledge was her undoing. Perhaps Kyubey decided they had erred and she knew too much. The prospect haunts me.

So what is known about the Incubators?

It's well established that the Incubators are aliens. This was not always understood, although they are open about it now. Until a few hundred years ago, the Incubators were seen as messengers from the gods…or gods themselves. Méntoras herself first appeared to young Nausicaa as an emissary of the wisdom goddess Athena, a theme which the young bard used when composing her enduring magnum opus. Young girls would immediately jump to this type of conclusion, and the Incubators saw no sense in arguing. Even my own girls thought this at first. And my own reaction to Kyubey as a devil is well documented.

I've never really changed my initial assessment.

Beyond that, most girls now know the Incubators came to Earth to help them fight wraiths. They can grant wishes for girls with potential, and they collect spent renewal cubes. They also act as advisors and mentors.

That's what most girls know.

As Homura has already noted, few magical girls know about the heat death of the universe in this timeline. They don't exactly hide it, but it isn't something they freely offer up and not many fourteen year old girls think to ask such things. Beyond that, Homura's (and my) knowledge from previous timelines must be seen as suspect.

I also know the nature of the Earth Operation, the evolution of the incubator form over time, the existence of the Kyubey collective, the presence of the anthropologists and, indirectly since they are magical girls wherever they might be, the seeding operations. I know there are lots of sapient species in the universe and they are a generally logical bunch, although perhaps not as unemotional as Kyubey claims.

One lovely little tidbit Méntoras shared with me during our first meeting shortly after Audrey's wish is that Kyubey has never been outside the Solar heliosphere. Kyubey only knows what his data sources tell him and what he learns from the anthropologists, and the latter wanted to make sure I didn't interfere with his ignorance. He's being censored just like he censors us…or tries to at least…and he doesn't even know it.

I'm left to wonder why.

* * *

*****Author's Note*****

I'll be releasing another story at the same time as I release this chapter. _A Daughter's Journey_ will be a companion story to _A Mother's Journey_. It will cover some rather violent topics and mature themes, and as such is rated M. I'll be using _Daughter's Journey_ to tell some stories and make some points I can't make under the T restrictions. Let's face it; a lot of puella magi led rated M lives...or worse.

The next several chapters in _Mother's Journey_ will lay the foundation of the other group of actors that will play into this story. I've set us up for the Battle of Kasamino City from the side of Team Mami (and Team Madoka if you read _Daughter's Journey_). There's another team in this game, and it's time we start learning about them before they enter the field.

But first we're going back in time to explore a past entry in Fiona's Chronicles which will have an impact on our story here in a bit. I hope any of my readers who are, like me, history buffs, will enjoy the ride into the past. :-)

And once again, I wish to thank Linkhyrule5 for his magnificent assistance trying to keep me in line. As always, any inconsistencies with canon are doubtless those instances where I chose to go my own way despite his advice. I also want to recognise my friend CelticX for his assistance with emotive voice. You're going to make me a better writer despite myself, you know…


	9. Unconditional Surrender, Part I

Telepathy Conventions:

The point-of-view character for the chapter is a potent telepath, a talent stemming directly from her wish. Hopefully the following conventions will keep things straight:

_dialog_ = internal dialog for the point of view character, the telepath  
"_dialog"_ = dialog meant for broadcast to everyone in the scene  
_{"dialog"}_ = dialog between a limited group of people as generated or relayed by the telepath. The sender or receiver(s) should be clear from the text

* * *

**Unconditional Surrender  
****Operation Meetinghouse, Part I  
****Justice of the Kirin**

_12:30 A.M., Saturday, March 10, 1945  
__Kajima, Kanto Region, Japan_

"_They're heading east."_

It had been a noisy past hour and Fuchida Tomiko was glad to have a respite from the grating sound of propellers droning well above her head, piercing the mostly peaceful nighttime quiet she had become accustomed to after moving to predominantly agrarian Kajima from metropolitan Tokyo two years before. She expected that her relief would be short lived as the high-flying airplanes seemed to arrive in waves.

The small girl standing barely 140 centimeters with long raven-black hair woven with fine aquamarine ribbons and iridescent blue-hued feathers rustling together idly in the chill breeze perched alone on a rooftop in the slowly growing silence under the clear, starlit winter sky. To her north stood the softly gleaming and majestic snow-capped peak of Mt Fuji in the near distance. There was no glare drowning out the sight of the proud volcanic icon of her nation. Lights were non-existant or blackened by strict government order, not to mention lack of fuel and electricity, so the buildings around her were dark. It was only two days until new moon, and the heavens shed very little light for a human to see by.

Were it possible, however, anyone just happening to catch a glimpse of her standing nonchalantly on one foot atop a temple spire with a total area of no more than two square centimeters might just have cause to question her humanity. If it were the Edo period they might consider her balancing abilities those of a ninja and marvel at just how she had gotten up there.

Such an unlikely observer would have found that stealthy image broken by her childishly colorful attire consisting of a radiant aquamarine dress complete with frills and bows and a magnificent blue-hued and gold Kirin. The Japanese unicorn with gazelle-like body and ox's tail emblazoned along her left side ran up to a proud lion's head which dominated the center of her chest. Seemingly completing the image was a raised, round sapphire set just above and between her eyebrows, a gem which matched exactly the color of her almost luminescent eyes.

"_Please, no…"_ a voice in her head whimpered.

The anguish in the child-like mental voice was palpable. Tomiko winced in guilt for not having predicted the impact her sparse words would have on the only resident magical girl of Tokyo, a sensitive girl of only twelve tender years. She had contracted barely ten weeks earlier after becoming an orphan. Under the best of circumstances, the girl to her east would still be struggling to adjust to her new life.

These were not the best circumstances.

"_Yumiko-chan,"_ another voice, sounding not much older than the overwhelmed Tokyo girl and just as worried, entered Tomiko's mind and the far-reaching telepath reflexively relayed the timid words to the other girls sprinkled across Japan. _"No one will blame you if you run away and come back when things have settled. We've had some bombings here around Nagoya too. They hit Mitakihara, where I'm from, really hard. I…I know what it's like."_

Kure Sachiko most certainly did know. The first of the new type of firebombs, at least the first that the girls knew about, had fallen in the Nagoya region, including her home of Mitakihara, three months earlier. That city had been revisited several times by the vengeful Americans as they ramped up their apparent efforts to set the Japanese home islands ablaze.

Sachiko's entire immediate family had been killed when their traditional wood and paper home was ignited by the nearby impact of one such December bomb. The girl herself had been on death's door, badly disfigured by third and fourth degree burns covering much of her body. Only her wish for healing allowed her to be there today to give what little comfort she could, looking none the worse for the experience...on the outside at least.

It was a rare day that went by which didn't find Tomiko gently working the damaged child out of at least one nightmare – her internal demons far more terrifying than the worst wraith imaginable. The girl standing watch in Kajima shivered at the memory of the images she had glimpsed in the Mitakiharan's tormented mind, images of her family burning alive which had only ended when Sachiko's own eyes had themselves charred away.

"_We've had some fall here in Northern Kyushu as well."_

"_And in Kobe which is very near here."_

There was little doubt that Hosokawa Mariko from Nagasaki and Todaichi Kaede from Osaka were doing their best to sound supportive despite being far too distant to help in any other way. Not for the first time, Tomiko wished Kyubey would see fit to contract another girl in the vast space packed with humanity that was urban Tokyo. She knew his reason for reluctance, though.

_I should be there._

The strange wish-granting creature had made it very clear he considered her presence in sparsely populated Kajima to be a waste of her talents and that she should leave her grandfather's house and return to Tokyo where she had first contracted three years earlier near the end of her ninth and, due mostly to her sex far more than her impeccable grades and voracious appetite for knowledge, final year of formal education.

_If only it were that easy. Kyubey doesn't have in-laws. There's only shame all around if I move back to Tokyo before Daisuke comes home._

"_But if I leave, who will protect everyone?"_ Yumiko replied plaintively to the words of her mentors to the west. _"It was only because of me that things weren't a whole lot worse two weeks ago. Fuchida-senpai says she thinks there's twice as many as last time, and I couldn't do it all then. I tried really hard, though. I really did!"_

The youthfully earnest words stung Tomiko and her guilt returned with a vengeance. Not for the first time she cursed her foolishness at the age of fifteen to contract. Her longevity, her empathy, as well as her phenomenally potent ability to communicate, in certain cases as far away as Europe, made her a leadership figure.

She didn't feel like much of a leader…especially at moments like this.

"_I know you did, Yumiko-chan_," Mariko consoled the still despondent child. As would happen with those she knew closely and who trusted her enough to be so open, Tomiko caught images of the ocean as the second oldest mahou shoujo in Japan looked out on the shimmering Inland Sea much as Tomiko was taking in Fujisan. _"You were amazingly brave. You tried so hard that we almost lost you. We love having you with us, Yu-chan. Like Sachiko-chan said, run to the outskirts of town and wait. We're here to fight the demons the others can't see. Let the Army rise up and fight the Americans with their fighter planes. That's their job!"_

"_Like they rose up two weeks ago?"_ the youngest and newest magical girl in Japan challenged, so mature and wise only three months since her own family had died. _"Hosokawa-senpai, two weeks ago there were no planes other than the ones dropping bombs."_

_Just like no one harried the planes tonight as they circled Fujisan for almost an hour collecting themselves._ Tomiko knew that thought wouldn't be helpful given the portent it presented for Yumiko's prospects this night, so she kept it to herself.

"_I think the military planes can no more get up that high than we can,"_ reasoned Mariko as she backed away from her previous vehemence. _"That and I doubt the pilots can see at night like us."_

"_I bet if they gave me a plane I could get up there and give those gaijin what for!"_

"_I'm sure you could, Kaede-chan,"_ Mariko replied to the fiery Osakan with a mental snort_. "As amusing as that might be, though, I doubt they'd let a school girl have the use of one of their fighter planes."_

"_I'd like to see them try and stop me!"_

Tomiko could easily imagine the evil grin that doubtless now graced the face of the most hotheaded of the five magical girls currently defending the home islands of Japan from an unseen threat that would run rampant under the current stressful circumstances were it not for their anonymous service.

"_I'd pay to see that!"_ chimed in the usually shy and reserved Mitakiharan girl gleefully. Kaede had recently made a visit to Nagoya and Tomiko was already seeing hopeful signs that Sachiko's heart and mind were beginning to find some measure of healing. The two girls seemed good for each other.

"_We could both take planes, Sachiko-chan! Then you could be my wingman!"_

_{"If things continue the way they are, that might just end up happening, Tomiko-chan."}_ The thought came from Mariko of Nagasaki along a 'side channel' which Tomiko didn't relay to the others.

The two of them, Tomiko and Mariko, were the veterans of the Japanese girls; the only ones who had contracted more than six months ago. Given Tomiko's potent wish-granted telepathy there had been plenty of time for the two girls to get comfortable in the well over two years that they had known each other. Their trust was such that they had shared some of their deepest feelings. It was on the shoulders of Mariko's wisdom that Tomiko was able to be so supportive to her kohai to the east and to the west.

Not surprisingly, Mariko was living a crisis in faith as a Christian in a war increasingly portrayed by both sides in terms that made Japanese Christians seem like traitors to their own kind. Although she hadn't repudiated her God, like the others of her sect she avoided displaying any symbols of her faith and kept a very low profile, which just happened to nicely fit her existence as a magical girl.

For her part, Tomiko feared for her fiancé, her childhood best friend and a man she knew was alive only because she could sense it through her wish. He was currently trapped on Bougainville Island in the South Pacific, hiding in bunkers from incessant American and Australian attack and living on starvation rations only available through haphazard farming and intermittent nighttime delivery from submarines. Although she could, she dared not communicate with him like she did her mother, despite her ability to do so. There was no telling what it might mean to him as a target for wraiths. Her mother had a protector. Her betrothed did not.

There was also the whole issue of how Daisuke would react to her being a magical girl, and more than that a telepath keyed to his mind as well as her mother's. How could they be a couple if and when this terrible war ended…assuming either of them survived it? Given how much she was changing, just as he undoubtedly was, would they even still be compatible?

Needless to say, none of these thoughts were helpful if you had to interact daily with your future mother-in-law back in Tokyo. Add to that the expectation she live with her fiancé's parents to 'protect her purity' given she had no close relatives remaining in Tokyo, was it any wonder she wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of returning to the capitol for reasons having nothing to do with the escalating bombings.

_{"I hope not, Mariko-chan,"}_ Tomiko replied apprehensively to Mariko's reluctant prediction of resistance against the Americans. She unconsciously continued to allow the Osakan and Nagoyan friends their long-distance banter through the relay, paying their excited words little mind as she focused on her own troubled thoughts and the words of her best friend.

As she spoke she hopped down from the temple roof in one bound to try and work off her growing nervous energy. She had no destination in mind; she just felt the need to move and so she absently made her way through the rice paddies and forests to her east. She used great leaps to make her way along her obstacle-strewn path. She loved the feel of wind in her ornament-woven hair, finding the sensation therapeutic.

_{"Everything Birgit has told me about the events in Europe, and from what I've been able to glean from the fighting between Fu Chen-Juan and Chow Yi in China, tells me that things don't end well when we magical girls get directly involved in human wars. Kyubey keeps warning us about how everything evens out. If we engage the Americans, an American girl or girls will get involved and we'll be worse off than when we started."}_

_{"This isn't like Europe, Tomiko-chan,"}_ the Nagasaki girl pointed out rationally._ {"The Americans are nine thousand kilometers from home on little islands. Where would the girls come from?"}_

_{"I don't know,"}_ Tomiko replied uncertainly. {"_I just know it wouldn't end well."}_

_{"Birgit-chan has really gotten to you, hasn't she? Is it the blonde hair? Or those pretty eyes?"}_ Mariko teased her friend.

_{"Mariko-chan!} _Despite the protest, Tomiko felt the now familiar hotness in her round cheeks and she knew she was blushing. Her pace increased in an effort to redirect her uncomfortable thoughts.

_{"Sorry, Tomiko-chan. You two were just so cute together last October when she brought you down with your mother during their visit. Almost like long-lost sisters or something."}_

The butterflies in Tomiko's stomach fluttered harder at the thought of her and Birgit being cute together. Confusing and most unsisterly thoughts passed through her mind. Thoughts Tomiko strove to keep private rather than broadcast to the world, a quite literal risk in her case. It was bad enough to be having such thoughts, especially as an affianced girl. The last thing she wanted was anyone else knowing of her shame.

_{"Well, Mother has kinda adopted her back in Switzerland. When all this is over and my parents can escape Europe, I hope to see a lot of Birgit. She's a good girl. Did I tell you she's asked me to come with her to Europe to facilitate uniting and organizing the Puella Magi over there? Between us she thinks she has a real chance to bring girls from all sides together into something that lasts, something that can lead to greater teamwork and perhaps moving beyond what she keeps pointing out is essentially our subsistence living."}_

_{"You mentioned that, and you also said you declined as long as the fighting continues here. There's also the question of whether Daisuke would want to leave Japan again once he gets back…and how you'd manage to get him there in the first place. Still, even beyond that, do you really think she's authentic? I know the neutral reputation of the Swiss, but everything I've read about them is that their national defense policy comes down to 'Let's You and Him Fight.' It makes me nervous to pin our hopes on that when we're the ones getting bombed."}_

Tomiko strove to tamp down her reflexive desire to passionately defend her Nordic friend. She knew Mariko meant well. Of the five contracted Japanese girls, only Tomiko hadn't personally experienced a bombing yet. She had seen the results in Tokyo, however, when she'd visited Yumiko numerous times since the girl contracted. She knew she had to respect the feelings of the others.

_{"Mother seems to think she's the real thing. She speaks very highly of the Swiss and of Birgit."}_

_{"Your mother is trapped in Europe, the wife of a diplomat in Berlin. The Swiss saved her from the prospect of being captured by the Russians, which you yourself told me would have been unpleasant to say the least. Then she was saved from wraiths by your new friend within a few days of arriving in Geneva. Can you be sure your mother isn't simply grateful and that her gratitude isn't coloring her impressions?"}_

Mariko's logic cooled her warm thoughts like ice to the nape of her neck. Tomiko stopped her leaps across the countryside and looked up to think, her eyes focusing on the northern star as if for guidance. The fingers of her left hand unconsciously ran along the mane of the magnificent creature that emblazoned the protective clothing that had come with her wish and which was essentially a part of her when she was transformed.

Were her feelings toward Birgit gratitude for having saved her mother's life, perhaps with her exotic appearance and the forbidden aspect of the whole thing tossed in for good measure?

_{"I don't know."}_

_{"You've said that already. You say it a lot these days, Tomiko-chan."}_

_{"You're being mean!"}_

Before Tomiko could respond further, the one voice that had been silent through all the chatter spoke again.

"_I can hear the planes now."_

The simple forlorn words from the girl in Tokyo were like a bucket of cold water on all other conversations.

"_Yumiko, please tell me you're someplace safe,"_ Mariko asked urgently, returning her focus to their youngest member and the one in imminent danger. Tomiko seamlessly switched to relaying her friend's thoughts to everyone. The enthusiastic banter between Nagoya and Osaka about how best to magic fighter planes and antiaircraft guns, which had never let up during the side conversation, stopped without Tomiko having to do anything to enforce it.

"_I'm sitting in my favorite tree on the Imperial Palace Grounds," _was the child's simple reply._ "I can see a long way from up here."_

An image of manicured foliage and the Edo Palace touched Tomiko's mind, the first time she had received more than just thoughts from her kohai and fellow native of the Kanto plain.

"_What! The Palace! That's in middle of everything!"_ Kaede exploded from the distant Kansai.

"_I know, Kaede-senpai. I'm sorry. __I can't leave everyone when there's something I can do. I've lost my family. I don't want any more girls like me to lose theirs."_

_{"I should be there with her."}_ Again, Tomiko used her side channel to Mariko.

_{"Yes, you should."} _The tone of the girl from Nagasaki was unusually blunt and chiding.

_{"How, though? I'm not a flier. The nearest flier is Fu Chen-Juan in China and she's more likely to guide the bombs than to stop the planes. The only thing stopping her from slaughtering our army over there is the fact she hates Chow Yi even more than she hates us. It'll be two hours before I can get to Tokyo and the bombs will start falling any minute."}_

_{"Then get going."} _Mariko clearly wasn't going to let up any more than Tomiko's own guilt.

The mostly agricultural route between Kajima and Tokyo was not unfamiliar to Tomiko and she had already been making her way along it as she worked off her nervous energy earlier, and so she set out quickly through the fields and rice paddies interspersed with bare trees just preparing to welcome the spring. Despite the urgency, she maintained the relay even if her concentration was on making fast progress. At the very least, the more distant girls could provide advice and moral support in the interim while Tomiko focused on determined movement.

"_Yumiko-chan, I think your dedication is marvelous, but just remember you aren't going to help anyone if you empty yourself of magic."_ Mariko reminded their young kohai.

"_I know, but my magic won't help anyone if I don't use it when it's needed,"_ the youngest girl replied rationally.

"_Why the Palace grounds?"_ Sachiko asked.

"_It's pretty here. It's almost spring and I want His Highness to see the sakura start to bloom in a few weeks. He can't if they're all burned up."_

"_His Highness the Showa Emperor is in Kyoto where he belongs. Something you'd do well to emulate." _Mariko seemed to be trying the approach of terse parental logic. She didn't say it, but the words "young lady" at the end of the admonition were apparent to everyone.

"_No he's…oh daddy…" _There was no missing the horror in the child's mind as the words were cut off. Only Tomiko knew the reason – fire rising from the city.

Her city.

In flames.

"_Yumiko-chan, what's happening?" _Kaede and Sachiko spoke the words together. Mariko's silence was likely only because the older and more experienced girl already knew the answer without need of words or images.

"_The b-bombs…they're f-falling again." _Even the girl's mental voice faltered as the sights only she and Tomiko could see blanked out thought. The bombs had been falling only a few minutes and already the horizon to her south was alight with dancing oranges and reds. She gathered her courage, though, and continued more confidently._ "It's the firebombs again. The ones that explode and spread the sticky burning stuff everywhere. They're hitting Shitamachi right now."_

"_Near Bunkyo?" _Kaede asked. Other than natives Tomiko and Yumiko, Kaede was the only other of the girls with experience in Tokyo having lived there for a few years in the late 30's.

"_Looks like…__**not here**__!"_ That last had the sound of outrage and defiance.

"_Yumiko!" _This time all three of the western girls cried out in concern. Tomiko knew what was happening and she stopped any effort to conserve magic, trading all she could for speed, knowing Yumiko was now on a timer. The magnificently brave girl's magic burned brilliantly from both ends like a rapidly vanishing candle.

There was a delay in her response, and when Yumiko returned to 'speaking' it was clear she was a lot more strained now. _"I'm fine, but they're hitting Chiyoda now. Some were going to fall here, but I've placed a barrier." _Tomiko's link to Yumiko was quickly tightening with the intensity of her concern, and she could sense the younger girl's body resettling itself on her tree limb even as her own body was leaping over treetops in her haste to pass the distance between them._ "We'll be okay now."_

"_How big a barrier, Yumiko-chan?" _Mariko spoke alone this time, dread clear in the voice like she already knew the answer and didn't want to hear it.

"_Over all of Chiyoda and the Palace."_

Kaede no doubt realized the ramifications of Yumiko's answer as she asked her own question._ "Yumiko-chan, that's what, over a dozen square kilometers?"_

"_I dunno. Maybe something like that. I'm not very good with math."_

"_Yumiko, you can't hold that up forever." _Leave it to Mariko to say the obvious. Tomiko barely heard the words, though, so focused was she on making progress with her own body as well as live through Yumiko's experiences. Tomiko found it increasingly hard to tell where she ended and the little girl facing a very real nightmare began.

"_I'm not going to let them bomb the Emperor."_

"_Like I said, he's not there," _Mariko reminded the girl urgently, not giving up on reasoning with her but also well aware of the gravity of the situation. It was all she could do from over a thousand kilometers and an inland sea away.

"_Yes he is," _the youngest of them replied matter-of-factly._ "I spoke with him yesterday."_

"_You what!" _Once again, a chorus of three girls. Tomiko didn't need to ask given she was well aware of the happy memories passing through Yumiko's mind, a stark contrast to the horrors now before her eyes

"_I learned a while ago how to use my barriers to make me invisible. I spend most of the day here on the Palace Grounds. I've even set up a little bedroom in one of the lofts that only I can get to. It's nice and cozy. Anyway, His Highness was taking a walk alone and I introduced myself to him."_

"_You…met the Emperor?" _Sachiko asked uncertainly.

"_At first he called over a servant and I made myself disappear. When the servant left, I reappeared and told him I was a ghost of a girl executed during the Tokugawa Shogunate when this was Edo Castle. He was very nice after that."_

"_You're pretty clever for a pipsqueak, you know that?" _Kaede marveled despite the serious circumstances.

"_What…did he say?" _Sachiko continued her inquiry in open wonderment. The idea of speaking to the Emperor, a living god, was completely alien to most of his subjects, even those for whom wishes and magic were old hat.

"_He's looking for a way to end the fighting. He's decided it's time to make peace, but the Army won't let him. He even told me when he came to the decision. It happened right after my wish, Hosokawa-senpai. I can't let him die. I just…can't."_

"_Your wish," _Mariko said knowingly. For neither Tomiko nor Mariko was it a question. Yumiko's wish had been for a swift end to the war leading to a generation of unparalleled peace and prosperity for Japan. There was little doubt now that the Emperor's mind was ground zero for that wish. Although her wish would outlast her if necessary, Yumiko literally couldn't allow harm to fall on the man as long as she lived.

"_I can't stand it anymore!" _the girl in the Palace tree cried out.

"_Stand what?" _Kaede spoke the words.

By words alone, Tomiko would have assumed like Mariko that Yumiko could no longer stand the danger to the Emperor. But that wasn't the whole story.

"_I'm watching a hospital burn on the other side of Chiyoda. I'm going to stop it now. Fuchida-senpai, please stop relaying to me. I need to focus."_

Kaede and Sachiko exploded in concern, but out of respect for Yumiko as well as her own sanity, Tomiko cut them off despite the fact it would isolate the two. She continued to keep her channel to Mariko going, though, clinging as she was to the wisdom of her friend.

_{"You need to get there right now, Tomiko-chan,"} _Mariko urged.

_{"Don't you think I know that? We've been over this. I. Can't. Fly!"} _

As the time and the journey wore one, the tension within Tomiko became unbearable. Her link to Yumiko was so tight now that she could smell the overwhelming stench of burning flesh. It was so overpowering she could taste it too. Only the fact she hadn't eaten in so many hours kept her from throwing up. She could hear the screams of the injured and dying. Her own skin ran with sweat from the feel of heat so intense poor Yumiko needed to use her precious magic to shield herself from it in order to avoid burns or worse. She could see molten glass running through the streets like water.

Tears stung Tomiko's eyes as she streaked through the countryside, so fast yet far too slow to save the child from her own bravery.

Mariko maintained a respectful silence as her telepath friend struggled to maintain her fast pace, only breaking it when she had an idea she felt was worthy of the distraction._ {"What about Birgit-chan? Can't she help?"}_

Mariko's words brought her up short, and Tomiko slowed her advance enough to concentrate. She tried desperately to shove Yumiko's efforts to fight the fire aside so she could think._ {"Umm, teleporting fifteen thousand kilometers takes a lot out of her."}_

_{"And fending off hundreds of American bombers and thousands of their bombs singlehandedly doesn't?"}_

Tomiko stopped her movement to wipe her sapphire blue eyes, irises which had been brown before her wish but that now matched those of the fierce lion's head on her chest whether or not she was transformed, with the back of one hand and to catch her breath in the mundane fashion which gave her the time to adjust plans. _{"You're right of course. Hold on while I figure this out."}_

Despite the price for her friend, if there was ever a time to call in a favor, now was that time. Birgit wanted to change the world when this war wrapped up. What good would that change be if there wasn't any Japan left to be part of it?

Tomiko focused her thoughts and her magic on telepathy. While it appeared she could communicate anywhere in the world to a magical girl she knew, it wasn't exactly easy and she needed to concentrate in ways she didn't when communicating over just a few hundred or even thousand kilometers.

_It's early afternoon for her._

_{"Birgit?"}_

Tomiko sensed disorientation from the other girl before coherent words flowed. _She was asleep_, the telepath noted. Tomiko could sometimes get images from Birgit much like she could from Mariko, but rarely over such a long distance and certainly not now that her wish-magic was so tightly focused on little Yumiko.

_{"Tomiko?"} _

Tomiko's English language skills were very advanced, but given the chaos of the evening she still had trouble settling her mind and thinking in the only language the two girls shared and which was native to neither of them. _{"I know you're busy trying to mediate between the Russians and the German girls, but I really need you. I think I'm going to lose Yumiko-chan if I don't get to her a lot sooner than I can get there myself."}_

_{"Yumiko? That's the new girl in Tokyo that replaced Akane? That's a lot of really crowded territory for one girl to cover, isn't it?"}_

_{"She actually handles it pretty well if there aren't bombs falling on her head!"} _Tomiko snapped. Not having time to argue, much less to explain the source of her own guilt in the matter, she harnessed her emotion for Yumiko and tried pushing an image of the child's world at that moment across the link to the Swiss girl.

_{"Oh, God."} _The two simple words managed to summarize the horror shared now by the girl in Europe_. {"It's Dresden all over again. Tomiko, she needs to leave until it's over. I've told you that. It's the only way the German girls survive when the bombs fall."}_

_{"I know and we've told her that. Believe me, we've all told her that!"} _Tomiko took a deep breath and tried to settle her frayed nerves. She sidled up to a tree and leaned against it, staring up into the heavens again in the hopes the stars could somehow block out the horrors still streaming to her from the capitol. It wasn't easy._ {"Remember, this is me you're talking to. But she refuses to leave."}_

_{"Is she fighting? Using her magic to fight the bombers?"}_

_{"No,"} _Tomiko shook her head emphatically despite Birgit not being able to see the motion._ {"She's not a fighter. You'd like her, Birgit. Her wish was for peace. She uses barrier magic and has no natural weapon. It took a while for us to help her figure out even how to defeat wraiths."}_

_{"Well that's good that she isn't fighting. I've told you what happens when we get involved in fighting human wars. So what is she doing that has you so worried?"}_

_{"Her barriers are as powerful as my telepathy or your teleportation. She's shielding a large portion of Tokyo, and she's using all her magic."} _Tomiko wrapped one arm around the tree, looking for reassurance. _{"She's not holding anything in reserve. She's going to run out before the bombs do."}_

_{"Tomiko, the bombs aren't going to stop until Japan surrenders to the Americans. We've seen that here with Germany. Tokyo is going to eventually look like Berlin. If she won't listen, then she'll burn out anyway. If not now, then soon."}_

The telepath wasn't interested in logic right now. Mariko's words about Swiss policy came to mind as she responded vehemently to her friend's cold logic._ {Birgit! You're being heartless! I'm not going to let that happen to Yumiko-chan. She's just trying to do the right thing…trying to keep any more girls like her from being orphaned. You of all people should understand that!"} _

Tomiko waited a moment for her words to have their effect on the no longer observant Jewish girl whose Communist-sympathizing parents had been caught in Poland in September 1939. When dealing with the SS, being Swiss was only a protection when you were in Switzerland.

_{"Maybe it's time I 'die' and just join her back in Tokyo,"} _she continued into the silence._ {"I probably should have done that as soon as she contracted."}_

_{"That's probably her only chance. Pragmatists are the only ones who survive in this war. That's the only reason I've survived like I have on this insane continent. She needs to learn what I did, and quickly."}_

_{"So will you help me so she has a chance to learn?"}_

_{"You really can't get there yourself?"}_

_{"I don't think she'll last until I can run there. We don't have any fliers in Japan, and the two Chinese fliers don't exactly like us very much."}_

Chow Yi had once explained to Tomiko in no uncertain terms why she would gladly shove her spear into the Japanese girl's stomach and twist with unreserved glee. The young native of Nanking had willingly, almost forcefully, shared her childhood memories from December, 1937. Fu Chen-Juan had told a similar story. She suspected the current situation in Tokyo, no matter how horrific, would be seen as divine justice by the bitter rival Chinese fliers.

_{"Right,} _the Swiss girl responded, knowing the back story from previous conversations with Tomiko._ {"Um, you do know what you're asking?"}_

_{"Yes, Birgit, I remember. I have extra cubes you can use when you get here. I know you'll arrive drained."}_

_{"Well, okay, then. I can't leave my best friend and co-conspirator in magical girl collectivization in a bind, now can I? I'm about to teleport there. You know what that means. Don't move and I'll appear in front of you. I'll assume you aren't standing in front of a cliff."}_

Despite the humor infusing the final words, it struck Tomiko as a particularly morbid thought.

_I guess I never thought about how dangerous teleportation might actually be. It seems so straightforward, but then again no one would understand what it's like to be in little Yumiko's head either._

Before Tomiko could respond to Birgit she felt her friend's presence in her mind vanish. No matter how much she reached out, it was gone. She could sense her mother, she could sense all the Chinese girls, even an Australian girl who had travelled close enough within China a few months back to register within the range that didn't require she previously know a girl, not to mention others in India and Southeast Asia that girl had later connected her to.

But Birgit was gone. It was no different from when Akane had died in Tokyo six months ago, or any other girls she had come to know in her three years who had later died. It frightened her despite having experienced this before with this same girl as well as her mother when the two came to visit the previous autumn.

As she waited, Tomiko felt her mind increasingly drawn to Yumiko's efforts to block the bombs and fight the fires. The intensity of the flames had gotten so bad in Shitamachi that even a magical girl had to retreat. Plain and simple, there just was no air. The winds around the core of the inferno had become fierce as everything seemed to be drawn into the maelstrom of fire that now covered the center of Tokyo. Orange and red ribbons licked at the heavens. Sparks like stars flew into the sky and rose seemingly just as high.

The bombers had descended much lower now, but even they seemed to be avoiding flying over the heart of the storm. Unfortunately, that meant the intensity over Chiyoda was increasing, and with it the threat to the Palace. Yumiko's magic was so drained now that she had been forced to retreat herself and her barrier to just the Palace and its immediate surroundings. She had minutes left…at the very most.

"Oh Tomiko!"

The telepath had been focused so deeply on the events unfolding in Tokyo that she hadn't even noticed when her body had slumped down limply to rest at the foot of the tree she had been leaning against, her head lolling from side to side without any direction. Her senses had ceased to be her own, instead becoming ruled by precious Yumiko. Even her magic had become merged with the girl to the extent Tomiko's power was now flowing directly to help bolster the barriers defending the Chiyoda District. Only fierce shaking and calling of her name by Birgit managed to bring her back.

Tomiko cursed, although nothing came out of her parched throat. She felt Yumiko slump, barely holding herself from crumpling, as the feed of magical energy from Tomiko was cut off.

"You're that deeply with her?" the newly arrived girl dressed in deep crimson tunic and pants with a long, royal purple cloak said softly into her ear as she dropped down to embrace her Japanese friend.

Tomiko could only nod. She tried to speak, but her throat was so tight and dry it just came out as a croak and she gagged. Birgit helped her rise weakly to her feet, despite the blonde, alabaster-skinned Germanic girl being little better off after teleporting across two continents.

"Are you going to be okay, sweetie?" Concern was clear in the girl's rich indigo eyes.

At any other time, the term of affection, the look of concern, the embrace from this girl would have filled Tomiko with happiness. Right now Tomiko doubted she'd feel joy ever again in her life. She certainly couldn't speak, but then again she of all people didn't need to. She nodded mutely at the immediate question and then turned her attention to making her way to Yumiko. There was no time left.

{"_Yumiko-chan_!"} Tomiko called out to the girl, relaying also to Birgit and Mariko. To Mariko she also included an image of Birgit before her to clue her Japanese peer what was happening and to stay quiet and just monitor. She left Kaede and Sachiko out of it entirely as she just couldn't deal with their emotion right now.

{"_T-Tomiko-sen…pai…_"}

"_Birgit, she's fading! Go! NOW!_"

With her telepathic words, Tomiko's wish magic spewed out Yumiko's world to everyone…everyone. The Chinese, the Koreans, the wandering Aussie and all who that girl had met in her recent travels, her mother…likely even Daisuke…anyone who was in her range or whom she had met…for all she knew maybe even others given the passion behind the imagery. All of them knew what it was to be Magical Girl Yumiko of Tokyo at that instant.

Birgit took the image and did what she would never otherwise have done under the best of circumstances, much less into an active war zone. She blindly teleported into a firestorm, skipping her usual probes of her arrival point, essentially uncertain of what she would appear in.

The world around Tomiko vanished and the familiar loss of sensation followed. Her connection with Yumiko was severed along with that of everyone else, and she mentally sagged in relief.

Birgit's voice pierced the bitter cold filling the space between spaces, a sensation she had felt only a few times before. No one, not even Birgit, could explain how it could be so cold when you were disembodied.

"Tomiko, we'll be there in just a second. Be ready for the heat…be ready for anything!"

Before Tomiko could respond, she was overwhelmed by a burst of intense heat that threatened to sear her skin. If she weren't transformed, she had little doubt her mundane clothes would be ignited. Winds buffeted her, knocking her down before she could get her bearings. She felt a soft body drop on top of her, enfolding her in satin and shielding her from the world around her until she could draw on her magic to set up defenses much as Yumiko was doing…had been doing until her connection with the child had been cut by the teleport.

Tomiko reached out with her mind and immediately confirmed the one shielding her was Birgit. The natural teleporter hadn't even hesitated to drape her purple cloak over both of them like chicks under a great bird's protective wings, doubtless knowing the telepath wouldn't have her instincts.

She reached out further and could feel Mariko, even Kaede and Sachiko…but not Yumiko. She closed her mind to what was happening around her, allowing Birgit to continue to handle the real world, and funneled all her power into her connection with the Tokyo girl…and connected. Or did she? It was just emotion, and so elusive she couldn't be sure.

Relief.

Calm.

Joy?

A brief image of what looked like a pink-haired magical girl in a frilly pink and white dress hovering above her with kind, bright red eyes and a smile that seemed, for one fleeting instant, to make everything better.

And then even that was gone.

A cold more bitter than the space between spaces gripped her.

Tomiko desperately clung to the faded remnant of her bond with Yumiko, funneling her magic unreservedly into it, trying with all her heart to reestablish it.

"Tomiko!"

She came to herself suddenly with a gasp, feeling again not only the increasingly familiar sensation of wind and heat, and the overpowering smell and taste of burning flesh, but also the rough shaking and the words of the girl still draped over her body. A body now curled into a ball and wracked with spasms of grief.

{"_Tomiko_!"}

Her head was a cacophony of thoughts, none of them her own. She had no idea how long it had been since her blind broadcast of Yumiko's final moments, but she had certainly gotten the attention of a lot of girls. Not just those in Japan and the others she knew, but many scattered around the world that for one reason or another must have been attuned to what was happening.

Her mind was raw, bombarded as it was with the thoughts and emotions of dozens of girls, all of them reacting to Yumiko's death in a myriad of manners, all of them flipping out in one form or another. She closed it all out, unable to deal with or process any of it right now.

_Yumiko…_

"Tomiko, I'm going to take us someplace safer. Without Yumiko's barriers, the bombs are falling freely and we're in no condition to do anything about it."

She felt herself picked up and thrown over Birgit's shoulder. With the protection of the Swiss girl's cloak now absent, the wind momentarily took her breath away and her exposed skin burned in the scorching heat. Only the fact her eyes were still tightly closed kept them safe without her focusing magic on protecting the sapphire orbs.

Loose yellow hair flew in her face as the Swiss girl made her way rapidly west, away from the firestorm. A far corner of her mind wondered why a teleporter and powerful flier was moving so mundanely along the rooftops of Tokyo.

Moments later Tomiko was laid down on cool moss amid ferns in a park of some sort, not so far enough away from the bombs that the wind wasn't still moving decidedly toward the flames, but far enough away that the heat was more-or-less back to normal and they weren't in any immediate danger of bombs falling on their heads.

Her eyes were still shut, but Tomiko could hear Birgit flop down beside her. A hand reached out and held hers, and she grasped it tightly.

"Are you okay, Tomiko?"

Tomiko swallowed back her initial reflexive, spiteful words which germinated from her tormented soul.

_Am I okay? I just died with someone! Someone more brave than anyone I've ever known. Someone who wanted to protect people and who just wanted peace. _

_Someone killed by people who look like you. _

_Like Hell am I okay!_

But she didn't say the hurtful things which crept out of the darker recesses of her mind. She didn't say anything, she just opened her eyes to glance over at her friend…and was met with a look of terrible hurt in the indigo eyes looking back at her.

Tomiko blinked and her body shook as she took inventory of herself for the first time since her moments in the space between spaces.

_I broadcasted that._

The realization shook her, but in that moment she didn't feel she could honestly take it back as much as she realized the sentiment was so unlike her. She did clamp down on her thoughts to prevent it from happening again. She then swallowed and tried speaking for the first time in a while.

"I-I didn't mean for you to hear that," she said by way of apology before biting her lip in worry knowing how weak it must sound. She wasn't losing sight of the fact the beautiful Germanic girl was her friend, but the knowledge of the injustice the men who looked like her were doing above her head would not fade.

It seemed so easy to just hate them all.

Birgit grimaced. "I kinda gathered that."

"Is this what peace looks like, Birgit?" It tore into her heart to examine her feelings with the one she loved next to her, but the Swiss girl was the only target for her grief. Tomiko found the anger congealing and her eyes narrowed at her diplomat friend as she tried to find some logic to what had happened – was happening – around her.

"Tomiko?" The western girl looked confused and more than a little anxious.

"I can't stand by and allow my people to be slaughtered like this," she admitted, giving voice to her bitterness. "I feel so helpless and I hate it!"

Birgit bit her lip as she considered her response. "So you'll do what? Slaughter others?"

"Maybe," the Japanese girl said uncertainly, adrift with her unfamiliar feelings. Her anger was driven more by frustration than hatred, and she knew it. Still, right this minute she wanted to lash out at something…anything. She gathered her courage and determination and tried to look resolute as she finished, "If that's what it takes."

"It will just escalate things, Tomiko!" the blonde girl implored her friend to understand, her grip on the girl's hand tightening. "Something will rise up to counter you. I saw that myself when the German girls tried to help the Luftwaffe over France, and again when a girl from the French resistance tried to help the Americans in the Ardennes. And why do you think so many of the Russian girls won't listen to me now, after what those three damned Hitler Youth girls did a few years ago when they spread east with their Wehrmacht fathers? It all evens out. Magical girls can't affect human wars."

"_That's not exactly true, Birgit Strauss."_

The new voice cut into their conversation, and as always Tomiko couldn't have blocked out Kyubey had she wanted to. Not that she did. His words intrigued her and she rose to sit and look across the foliage to see the white creature perched atop a lichen-crusted, stone Inari fox statue.

_Is there maybe a way out of this? _Tomiko thought hopefully.

"Kyubey?" both girls intoned in unison.

"_With their wishes," _the strange white creature began in a rather didactic manner even for him, "_magical girls can direct human history. It's only _after_ the wish that direct intervention beyond magical girl affairs becomes unwise. Saotome Yumiko's wish even now is working to bring the conflict over these islands to a rapid conclusion. Birgit Strauss's wish has stimulated the development of an unprecedented union of Earth's nations. And Jessica Fletcher's wish facilitated the creation of the human technology flying above our heads right now. She wished eight Earth years ago that she and her grandfather would develop the aircraft to bring about the absolute military defeat of the Empire of Japan."_

"What!" Tomiko felt stunned by Kyubey's seemingly offhanded revelation, her previous fleeting hope quickly extinguished and giving rise to outrage. "A magical girl created those planes? I thought magical girls brought hope to the world, not machines of death!"

"_This human concept of hope has always escaped me. It appears to be highly subjective and what constitutes hope for one often conflicts with that of another. In any case…"_

Tomiko felt disembodied as her vision was usurped by the alien and she saw a girl with long sandy hair despite her obvious Han Chinese features, mixed with her European nose and brilliant golden eyes and a much older man, unambiguously western, poring over papers and walking amid aircraft in various stages of construction.

"_She didn't bring forth the individual machines, of course,"_ Kyubey's words continued even as the scenes before her changed. _"But the man who developed the technology allowing them to fly so high, so far, and with so many bombs was inspired by his granddaughter's wish and aided by her own insights behind the scenes. She's since become a talented engineer herself, although she wisely always feeds her ideas through humans such that they rarely perceive them as anything but their own. I imagine when the Americans gather the similarly wish-inspired flight technology of the Germans, she and her grandfather will together move human technology beyond the biosphere of this planet. She's a remarkably durable Puella Magi, very pragmatic much like Ms Strauss here, so she may well live to see human spaceflight. That's her intention."_

Tomiko blinked as she tried to digest all she was hearing. _These planes came from a wish?_ She was only peripherally aware of the conversation that continued around her as she processed the wish-granter's stunning revelation.

"Kyubey," Birgit added defensively, "don't link me with her. I wished to bring people together so that they could find common ground. I didn't wish to create war machines!"

"_I didn't say you did, Birgit. I simply said you're a pragmatist. You realize sacrifices need to be made at times to reach greater ends. How many Russian and French girls have you conveniently lost in what you refer to as the space between spaces? Five? And how many of those weren't derisive of your plan for uniting the Puella Magi after the current conflict resolves?"_

Tomiko shook her head violently as she absorbed the latest words from the creature, her awareness snapping back to herself like a stretched and then released rubber band.

_Lost? In that hellish place?_

She thought of her own anxieties, the fears she herself had had initially of being left by Brigit in that cold place. She shivered as the full ramifications of what Kyubey had said crystallized in her mind. The idea felt akin to being buried alive.

_How long would someone last like that? Alone and bereft of sensation? Marooned in nowhere?_

She turned to look into Birgit's eyes in the hopes she'd see proof that Kyubey was mistaken or even lying, but the blonde girl couldn't hold the stare.

"It's true, isn't it?" Tomiko accused, the anger she'd been trying desperately to avoid directing at the target of her affections finding purchase at last. "All this talk about coming together? You've been assassinating girls. Girls who trusted you because you can't teleport a magical girl unless she lowers her reflexive protections. You're like a venus flytrap!"

"Tomiko, you have no idea of the hatred I'm dealing with over there." Indigo eyes met sapphire ones, pleading with them to understand. "If I didn't prune some of it…"

"Oh I have some sense, all right," Tomiko glared, her insides still reeling from her sense of betrayal. All the grand dreams and happy words…yet underlying them was one terrible fact. "You'll fight to protect your own country but not mine."

"Tomiko, that's not…"

"Then why," Tomiko interrupted harshly in indignation at the injustice, "is this Jessica Fletcher still alive? I want her dead. Right now!"

"Tomiko…"

"Don't you _dare_ 'Tomiko' me! I believed in you, Birgit. I still want to believe in peace, but more for Yumiko than you now. As long as this girl is spewing out monster machines, my people are dying. Maybe I can't fight the humans, but I can damn well fight this demon girl helping hers kill mine."

"She's in America, Tomiko. I can't…"

"Here," she again cut off her friend, predicting the next words. "Use these!" Tomiko practically threw a handful of cubes at the other girl who still lay on the ground. "You've got fifteen minutes and then we're going. If you don't like it, you can just murder me like you did the other girls."

Birgit winced at the harsh but accurate accusation. "I'm sorry..."

She looked down at the obviously miserable European, a girl she still loved despite the epiphany of the past few minutes, and softened enough to sigh. "I know you are, Birgit. I know I'm asking a lot, but this is justice."

"You really believe that?" the Swiss girl asked with a worried expression.

Tomiko nodded, biting her lip nervously despite her seeming determination. "She wished to destroy a nation. My people. We'll all be dead if she's allowed to keep at this."

"What about Yumiko's wish?" Birgit responded hopefully. It was clear to Tomiko that her friend really wanted to dissuade her.

She thought for a moment, weighing the logic before shaking her head. "How many people will die until the two wishes sort themselves out?"

"Killing her won't stop the planes that are here now."

"Perhaps not, but what of the future? None of us here in Japan made a wish to kill others. This girl is a monster."

"And what will you be when you kill her?"

Tomiko knew her next words would be hurtful, but said them anyway. "No different than you, apparently."

Birgit swallowed and brought herself up to sit alongside her friend, keeping her gaze away from Tomiko's intense face. "Okay, I'll do it. But I'll be useless in a fight when we arrive, so it'll all be up to you. Don't forget this, either. I've been very careful to cover my tracks in Europe. No one knows what I'm doing, unless…" She paused a moment as she turned to look at the seemingly forgotten alien. "Kyubey? Have you told anyone else?"

"_I only mentioned it here because you and Fuchida Tomiko are allies and you were here with her. Your words to her belied your actions. I thought she should know so that she could best consider her options."_

"I really wish you hadn't."

"You wish I didn't know the truth, Birgit?" Tomiko asked indignantly.

With a grave expression, Birgit turned back to face her friend. "Tomiko, if this goes poorly, all I've worked for…no, all _we've_ worked for, will be for nothing. If we're seen taking sides and the word gets out, it's all over."

"I know." Tomiko wasn't going to back down now.

"As long as we understand each other. Now I need to clear my gem before we go. I strongly suggest you do the same. It may be your feelings right now are affected by that."

Birgit motioned with her hand in the direction of Tomiko's soul gem, and the two girls' gaze met on the Japanese girl's sullied source of power. Tomiko knew Birgit was right. Rarely had her gem been so dark – she was usually fastidious about clearing taint quickly. Still, she bitterly clung to her anger and nursed the embers of hatred, feeling loath to release any of it knowing she'd likely never connect to the alien emotions again. She was riding her desire for justice over what had happened to little Yumiko and what was still happening all around her, as the bombs continued to fall and unleash their Hell on Earth.

So instead of drawing on her few remaining cubes – sedate Kajima wasn't well suited to collecting much of a stockpile of the little things and most of her hoard had been given to Birgit – she left Birgit in the company of Kyubey and walked to where she could behold the continuing destruction of the capitol.

As she stood watching the carnage, one of the American bombers, spinning out of control after losing part of one wing, fell from the sky and into the firestorm. She shocked herself with her feeling of satisfaction as the aircraft hit the ground. Its impact was lost to the surrounding flames and any sound it made was obscured by the quickening rush of air into the heart of the maelstrom.

It struck her at that moment just how much she had changed today. There had been a time when she had cried over a dead goldfish, and she had never willingly eaten meat or eggs. Now here she was cheering on the death of human beings.

Then again, said human beings were raining indiscriminate death and destruction on a city filled, yes with soldiers and politicians who had once crowed about rescuing Asia from the West, but mostly with men, women, and children who just wanted to live to see the next day. What could possibly justify the devastation before her?

Was it as Chow Yi had said? Was this divine retribution for Japan's actions in China?

Who gave the gods the right to kill children?

Disgusted with the entire world, she was just turning to make her way back to Birgit when a flash of something caught her eye. She turned her face back to look closer with her enhanced vision. It was dark, not the classic white, but still unmistakable.

A parachute!

A parachute falling fast, and by the looks of it set to land nearby. In that moment, Tomiko's anger and disgust found a focus. She had no intention of giving up her outrage at the American magical girl who was behind these demon machines, but that one wasn't actually dropping the bombs.

This one was.

Not thinking about ramifications or greater meaning, ignoring her own internal conflict, she leapt into the air to meet the falling object. For the first time since the bombers started gathering above Fujisan she materialized her weapon, grasping the long object firmly before her as she hit the ground and began striding the remaining distance to where the aviator had made contact with the Earth. As she approached, any doubt she might have had about the nationality of the man was dispelled.

The hair atop the green uniform was as a fair as Birgit's.

The American had been fortunate so far. By his movements, he seemed shaken but uninjured. He had fallen in a small clearing that was part of the manicured grounds Birgit had fled to with Tomiko over her shoulder. He apparently was unnoticed by anyone so far, save for one small Japanese youth. That was as far as his luck was going to take him.

The man was tall, and he was now dusting himself off and working to detach himself from his parachute bindings. Tomiko didn't give him a chance to try and hide. Taking her naginata in both hands, she rushed the American and drove the butt end of it into the man's stomach using only part of her strength.

Despite her reserve the blow still knocked the wind out of the man, throwing him back several steps. He looked up in fear, and then surprise at the identity of his assailant. Tomiko by no means had the most gaudy magical girl outfit she'd seen, but she liked frills as much as any girl and the mystical oriental unicorn that emblazoned her transformed clothing was distinctive.

Still, more than her aquamarine dress and accessories, she suspected the sight of a girl in _any_ mode of attire and wielding a narrow sapphire blue staff capped by a long, curved golden blade, colors which matched those of her emblematic Kirin, was not what the man had expected.

"Murderer!" Tomiko cried out in English as the man recovered.

The man didn't try to argue. Instead he reached down to pull something away from his leg. Tomiko was much faster, though, and she batted the object, a handgun it turned out, away – this time with the business end of her native pole arm. The man screamed as he drew back a bloody stump.

"Bombing children from the air and now trying to shoot us in our own capitol? Coward!"

"I'm just a tail gunner!" the man wept as he cradled his wounded arm and backed away from the driven girl.

"I don't know what that is and I don't care. See this?" She held out her blade before the man menacingly. "This is a naginata. The weapon of a samurai woman defending her home when the men are away. Hangaku Gozen used the naginata to fight the invading forces of Minamoto Yoriie. And right now, I use this to defend my own home from you!"

With those angry words she swung the blade and cleanly separated the man's neck, sending his head flying into the nearby ferns.

"Tomiko, this isn't like you…" Birgit's quiet voice broke into her thoughts as she watched the man's body collapse nerveless, his lifeblood spurting from his neck and out onto the ground before her.

Tomiko stood motionless with her newly bloodied weapon in her hands for several long moments. Knowing that to think on her latest actions would almost certainly doom her determination to seek justice; she redirected her thoughts to her objective. "Can you get us to this Jessica Fletcher based on the image Kyubey flashed us?"

Birgit hesitated for a moment as she glanced down one more time at the draining corpse. Looking back up to her seemingly resolute friend, she sighed before answering. "I think so, assuming this girl truly exists and is still alive. If she's neither, we'll never come back out. There's also still the chance we'll materialize inside something." The two held a stare. "What about you, can you at least sense her?"

Kyubey was inconveniently gone again, but the images he had displayed for them both were still in her mind. Unlike a picture, these images had a more real sense to them. It was almost as if…

Almost as if she knew the girl.

Drawing on her power and the unprecedented range she had momentarily achieved when she was driven by her anguish over Yumiko's plight, she reached out but didn't speak. She kept her mind decidedly blank as she tried to make contact…and touched a mind. Like with any telepathy between magical girls, at least any girl that wasn't on death's door like Yumiko had been at the end, the protections were all there. But like with all girls, there was an opening for simple mindspeech.

Tomiko closed the thread between them immediately, giving nothing away.

"I've got her."

"Anything specific?"

"I didn't stay that long. I didn't want to tip her off. Still, the taste of her wish was spot on. Bitter and angry."

"Taste?"

Tomiko shrugged. "How else can I describe it? All girls I've communicated telepathically with are keyed by their wishes. The best way I can explain it is with taste. Anyway, here's what I have."

Tomiko shared her sense with Birgit, who nodded. "I'm pretty sure I have her. And don't worry, as much as I was joking earlier, I haven't yet come out inside something or without firm ground to stand on."

"And if you had, we wouldn't be having this conversation," the telepath pointed out, trying to feel the humor that would usually infuse such banter between them.

"Funny that," the teleporter finished with a smirk before extending her hand to Tomiko. "Are you really and truly sure about this? You know, after this there will be no turning back."

The wavering dark-haired girl looked down at the stiffening corpse of the American flier she'd just executed. She then looked up and east to the horizon at the conflagration that was Tokyo. Finally, as her hand once again fingered gently along the beast across her chest, she brought to mind the smiling image of a young girl whose only wish was to bring a swift end to this madness.

_I'm sorry Yumiko. I'm sure you wouldn't like what I'm about to do, but just as you couldn't leave Tokyo to its fate, I can't allow this demon girl to go on killing little children so long as I draw breath._

"Let's do it," she said simply. She prayed the Kirin's wisdom – and its ferocity in the pursuit of justice – would follow her, even down the dark path ahead.

* * *

**Author's Note**

**Historical Footnote  
****Second World War, Pacific Theater  
****Operation Meetinghouse**

On March 10, 1945, beginning about 1am local time, 279 Boeing B-29 Stratofortresses of the XXI Bomber Command flying from Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas island chain proceeded to drop 1665 tons of incendiary bombs on the tinderbox that was urban Tokyo, capitol city of the Empire of Japan. The ensuing firestorm was the greatest ever single-engagement loss of life due to aerial bombing, and perhaps period. Depending on the reference cited, over 100,000 souls dead, 125,000 wounded (mostly burns), and over a million homes destroyed. In one night, 7% of sprawling urban Tokyo was torched, fully 16 square miles of the most densely populated territory on Earth at the time. The fire was centered on Shitamachi, which curiously is just a few hundred meters from Akihabara. I'm sure my fellow otaku readers will know the reference.

The planes flew as low as 5,000 feet to enhance accuracy, which meant uncomfortable oxygen masks weren't necessary as would have been the case when flying at the 30,000 feet ceiling of these planes. The gunners at the tails of the late-arriving planes reported gagging due to the stench of burning flesh despite being a mile in the air. The psychological impact on the fliers was extreme- I know as one of them was my wife's grandfather and he very occasionally spoke of it.

Temperatures at the heart of the firestorm, where air itself burned, were estimated to have hit 1600 degrees based on the metals liquefied. Glass flowed like water into streets. The updrafts were so spectacular that later aircraft reported jumping up to 4,000 feet in just a few seconds as they crossed over the center of the storm.

Although there is much controversy regarding the usefulness of the much less deadly atomic blasts later, few credible historians deny that the firebombing of Japan hastened the end of the war. In just one month, by the end of March, 1945, the industrial capacity of the Japanese Empire had been reduced by 50%. It is reported that it was while surveying the result of Operation Meetinghouse that Emperor Hirohito began his oft obstructed effort to end the conflict.

Following the capitulation of the Japanese Empire, the people of Japan proceeded to slowly pick up the pieces. Within 10 years, assisted greatly by the revenue generated by supplying the United Nations peacekeeping engagement in nearby Korea, Japan was well on its way to becoming the industrial powerhouse (and most wondrous anime and manga producer!) it is today.

In my story, Yumiko's wish tipped the scales to the appointment by Gen. Hap Arnold of Gen Curtis LeMay, the architect of the firebombing campaign of the Home Islands of Imperial Japan. I played a little loosely with history by placing the Showa Emperor in his Edo Palace during Operation Meetinghouse as well as his fulminating thoughts on ending the war before that night. The image of young Yumiko chatting with her tightly controlled Emperor was just too cute to pass up.

So as little Yumiko wished, the end of the war was hastened and a generation of peace and prosperity was brought to Japan…at a horrific price for those on both sides, in the air and on the ground, who had to pay it. But that's the nature of wishes. Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it…

**Historical Footnote  
****Second World War, Pacific Theater  
****Mt Fuji as reference point for arriving bombing sorties**

In the early 1990's, my wife and I had the honor of learning from an amazing professor of East Asian history. Her name was Noriko Kawamura, and she was born in Japan. She recounted privately to me of her parents and grandparents describing how the B-29's would buzz in circles around Mt Fuji before zooming off to their final targets. They apparently lived nearby the volcanic peak. It was notable to them how the planes were never engaged by Japanese fighters. Despite the propaganda in their media, seeing the (well armed) lumbering bombers unmolested told them volumes about the state of the war. I thought it was an interesting story to integrate here, hence where the story starts for young Tomiko.

In the interests of accuracy, I will note that Mt Fuji was not used as a landmark during Operation Meetinghouse. Its use was later when the bombing shifted to daylight. Still, I choose to stick with it based on creative license. I am making note of it here, though, to keep my fellow historians happy. ;-)

**Historical Footnote  
****Second World War, Chinese Theater  
****Tension between the Nationalists and Communists during WW II**

During WWII, China was by no means a united front. The fulminating civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists begun in the 1920's continued even as the Japanese Imperial Army marched through China. It is no understatement to say that they hated each other more than they hated the Japanese, and in fact the Japanese played a large part in the eventual fall of China to Maoist forces after the war. The Communists were strong in the countryside where the Japanese were never very entrenched, and the Nationalists were strong in the cities where the Japanese hunkered down. When the war ended, the Communists were MUCH better placed everywhere except the island of Formosa- current day autonomous Taiwan, Republic of China.

As happened in Europe in my story, girls on both sides maintain a balance preventing undue interference with the course of modern human conflict. Chow Yi, the young Nationalist, and Fu Chen-Juan, her Communist flier peer, are two such girls near Shanghai by the events of this story.

**Cultural Footnote  
****Kirin/Qilin (Japanese Kirin; Chinese Qilin)**

_Per Wikipedia:_ There are many different ways Qilin have been described. Some think of them as a rare form of unicorn; others have described it as a creature that has the head of a dragon and a body of tiger with scales. Others see it as a creature with a single horn on its forehead, a multicolored back, the hooves of a horse, the body of a deer, and with the tail of an ox.

Although it looks fearsome, the Qilin only punishes the wicked. It can walk on grass yet not trample the blades, and it can also walk on water. As it is a peaceful creature, its diet does not include flesh. It takes great care when it walks never to harm or tread on any living thing, and it is said to appear only in areas ruled by a wise and benevolent leader (some say even if this area is only a house). It is normally gentle but can become fierce if a pure person is threatened by a sinner, spouting flames from its mouth and exercising other fearsome powers that vary from story to story.

We'll see more of the mythology motif in the next two chapters. The Japanese believe the world is filled with kami, and I will be reflecting that belief back just a little bit into a story where souls are manifest and wishes are real.

**Story Note**

I know this is something very different. This and the next two chapters tell a story arc that will have a very real impact later in the _Mother's Journey_ story. I've always had a love of history, and I will likely go back and tell other stories over time that integrate the Puella Magi in historical events.

Please let me know via reviews or PM what you think. I really value feedback and take it very much to heart. I also wish to thank from the bottom of my heart those who have favorited or followed _Mother's Journey_, or the M-rated sister work _Daughter's Journey_. I am honored by your interest and will strive to continue to earn it.

Oh, and for those who have been asking when we'll actually see Fiona enter the story, you won't have to wait much longer. She's the epilogue to _Operation Meetinghouse_. :-)


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